


to yield when the course is wrong

by alternatedoom



Category: Marvel (Comics), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies), The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types, Thor (Movies), Thor - All Media Types
Genre: Action/Adventure, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Alternate Universe - The Villains Won, Anal Sex, Avengers: Infinity War Part 1 (Movie) Trailer Spoilers, Character Death, Consensual Sex, Consent Issues, Control Collar Trope, Dark Thor (Marvel), Dead Dove: Do Not Eat, Doom Ex Machina, Dubious Consent, Established Relationship, Forced Orgasm, Friendship, Gods Are Pansexual And Polyamorous, HYDRA Trash Party, Kink Meme, Loki Has Issues, Loki has a heart, M/M, Multi, Obsession, Oral Sex, Rape/Non-con Elements, Sex Magic, Sexual Slavery, Sibling Incest, Slow Burn, Stockholm Syndrome, Thor: Ragnarok Trailer Spoilers, Thor: The Dark World Spoilers, Threesome - F/M/M, Threesome - M/M/M, Time Travel, Tony Does What He Wants, Torture, Vaginal Sex, Violence, Visions
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-23
Updated: 2017-10-23
Packaged: 2019-01-17 08:37:07
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 2
Words: 55,177
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12361815
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/alternatedoom/pseuds/alternatedoom
Summary: "Your brother has become a rabid dog," Doom warns. "A problem. One that will be need to be corrected one way or another."





	1. The Avengers

**Author's Note:**

> Written for the Avengers kink meme [here](https://avengerkink.livejournal.com/1854.html?thread=102718#t102718). Prompt was: _Loki wins by luring Thor over to the dark side. He gets a lot more than he bargained for. Dark!Loki is a neutral, logical sort of evil, with the occasional indulgence. Dark!Thor is a greedy, half crazed, berserker who gets off on violence and murder and chaos. He's also a bit sentimental. He refused to kill the Avengers and instead talked Loki into keeping them as slaves and pets._
> 
>  _Aside from dark!Thor and regular evil Loki sharing some of the Avengers during sex, I'd love to see Loki coming to slowly regret having Thor go evil and conspiring with the Avengers about what to do because he can't keep him in line forever._  
>   
> 
>    
> 1\. Though he was not requested in the prompt at all, the latter half of this fic came out really Doom-heavy. It was probably inevitable. Someone with two thumbs really loves Doom right now, and he felt very suitable for this fill.  
>   
> 2\. This starts two or three months after the events of the 2012 Avengers movie, but some notes about that: First, I haven't watched any _Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D._ and I know only a little about the series, so for the purposes of this fic assume the Avengers found out Coulson got better. Second, the events of _Dr. Strange_ have already taken place. Third, I have watched _Thor: The Dark World_ an embarrassing number of times and if you are unfamiliar with that movie, the ending of this will be spoilery and disjointed.  
>   
>  3\. Dedicated not only to the promptwriter (because hella good prompt there OP) but also to the exquisitely talented anon who wrote [It Began with Blood](https://avengerkink.livejournal.com/1854.html?thread=11276094#t11276094). That fic was a forceful inspiration and had such a myths-in-clouds Norse feel, and I was bummed to see it go unfinished. While this fill is quite different, the story begins in the place it does, I think, because I wasn't even going to attempt to write a setup that could measure up to that long, beautiful, slow-building Thorki powerhouse.  
> 

On the bridge of the floating fortress, Thor is breaking necks left and right when a man in a suit attacks from above with some kind of crackling laser weapon. Loki uses magic to jerk the man forward off the balcony, knocking the weapon from his grasp before he can successfully aim it at Thor. All these S.H.I.E.L.D. agents are courageous idiots, and Thor's new attacker is no exception.

The man sails through the air and lands hard against a bank of computers and two spinning bridge chairs.

"You," Loki says, slightly astonished when he recognizes the face. "I _killed_ you."

"Evidently not so much," the not-dead man says, and he goes for one of the enormous guns dropped by one of the slain agents.

Loki casts an illusion of himself standing in place, then invisibly leaps to the familiar stranger. Predictably, the fool shoots Loki's illusion. Midgardians are terribly slow learners. The faux Loki disintegrates as the first bullets pass through. Upon landing Loki reappears, disarming his opponent with ease.

Thor begins to step forward and raise his hammer to reduce the man's head into a pulp, but Loki makes a snap decision and puts out a hand to ward Thor off, a gesture to stop. "No," Loki says. "I want this one."

Thor, to his credit, changes course at once. He drops his hammer and bends and seizes a dazed dark haired woman he'd backhanded from the floor. Thor drags her to her feet, throws her gun away like a toy and wraps his hand around her chin, holding her aloft, and beaming at Loki all the while, probably because Loki has caved and at last gotten into the spirit of Thor's demands.

Then Thor turns back to the man on the floor. "Surrender to us, Phil, Son of Coul, or I will put Maria's eyes out."

Thor's tactics have evolved. Loki approves. 

The man's name reverberates a sudden chord of memory, and Loki replays its origin in his mind in Stark's voice. _There's one other person you pissed off. His name was Phil._

"You just killed my boss," Coulson says curtly.

As she regains her senses Maria fights Thor start to finish, a one-woman dynamo, all flying elbows and kicking legs. Thor dodges and mostly disregards her efforts, because Thor is Thor and she's still just one human woman.

"Then I suppose that makes us your superiors now." Loki drops to a crouch beside Phil. "Do you want to buy your friend's safety with your cooperation? Or shall I tell my brother to do as he proposes?"

Maria tries to yell something, but her words are strangled away, her sounds muffled almost into nothing by Thor's grip.

Coulson seems resigned. He doesn't look at Maria long before making the decision to surrender, needing no more than a glance at her dangling and choking and twisting ferociously in the air. "Yes and no. In that order."

Coulson stiffens as Loki removes one of the shining collars from his pocket dimension and snaps it around Coulson's neck. When Loki pulls back, Coulson's hands rise to feel around the thin metal contours with his fingertips.

"You were mortally wounded," Loki tells him curiously. "Seconds from death. I stabbed you straight through the heart."

Coulson shrugs. 

Midgardian technology has advanced further than he realized if Phil Coulson survived him. Even Asgardians do not customarily survive being gored in the chest. "Come along then," Loki says.

"Let Hill go first," Coulson says as if he's in a position to make demands, two fingers still hooked under his new collar.

Maria hangs limp in Thor's grip, passed out from lack of oxygen, and Thor is focused with obvious but strange pleasure on her empty face.

"Thor?" Loki queries, and his brother drops the woman like a damaged sword he no longer has use for.

They separate to continue searching for Barton and the scepter; Loki wants to cast a spell of location in the center of the warship. Thor lingers behind on the bridge dispatching two more newly-arriving agents as Loki leads Coulson out and down the hall. Coulson glances back once, but he follows obediently, and as they progress farther down along the corridor, Loki doubts an inferior human ear can discern the precise timbre of a breaking neck or three. Loki winces slightly, for he would have kept to the impromptu bargain struck with Phil Coulson. But Thor has grown oddly wild of late.

*

His spell fails to indicate the presence of the scepter.

When they meet back up on another level of the flying vessel, Thor has located Clint Barton and is carrying him limp and unconscious over one shoulder. Loki slips a collar on him. Coulson's eyes flicker over Barton and Thor, and he casts a quizzical, seeking glance at Loki, but Loki offers him no enlightenment.

"Did you find it?" Loki asks, and Thor shakes his head. Loki turns on Coulson. "Where is my scepter?"

Coulson looks between them. "I don't know."

Loki grabs him by the shapely Windsor knot of his tie and reels him in with force. "I don't know," Coulson repeats. "That information requires the highest level of clearance. Director Fury would have been the person to --" Loki silences him with a shake.

Thor shifts Barton's weight around. "If the Chitauri scepter is not here, I would return to the Tower."

Loki half wants to berate him, because regaining the scepter is vastly more important than absconding with Clint Barton, but it's true that if the scepter is no longer on the flying warship, Loki can do little more to find it now. Like rats, S.H.I.E.L.D. has likely squirreled his prize away, concealed by thick concrete walls in another underground bunker, like the complex that housed the Tesseract for study, now collapsed into so much rubble.

"Very well," Loki says, and reluctantly he pulls out and activates Doom's homing teleportation device, transporting the four of them back to the roof of the relocated Avengers' Tower.

"'Lack conviction,' do I," Loki says to Coulson as they enter into the penthouse and descend the first set of stairs. "'In my nature to lose?' Do you stand by those words now?"

"You do remember me," Coulson says as if he's surprised and mildly flattered.

"I do," Loki says. "Now take off your clothes," he tells Coulson as they walk.

"Excuse me?" Coulson leans his head towards Loki as though he believes he's misheard. "Take my clothes off?"

"Yes," Loki says crisply. "Leave them behind where they fall. Keep up."

Coulson wastes a few moments staring at him, and Loki raises his eyebrows. "Do it, unless you want to see the others suffer."

Frowning, Coulson opens his mouth as though he is confused or wants to argue. In the end he settles for continuing his line of questioning while he takes off his suit jacket. "Who are the others?"

"Look where you are," Loki suggests.

Coulson discards the tailored garment in a rumpled heap, as though he doesn't expect he'll be back for it, and then he hops for a few steps as he removes his shoes, then socks. Loki watches sidelong, amused. Coulson loosens his tie, unbuttons his shirt methodically and sheds those too, leaving a trail of clothing strewn behind him. Beneath his plain white undershirt, Coulson has a smattering of dark chest hair. Although Asgardians grow among the mightiest beards in the nine realms, second only to those of the dwarves, Asgardian bodies are naturally hairless below the neck. His first sight of a furred mortal chest strikes Loki as jarring no matter how many times he sees them, in part for the reminder that despite appearing noble in form, as though close kin to Asgardians, the peoples of Midgard are little more than fortuitous, marginally evolved primates.

The three of them march through a couple of large rooms. In the middle of a city, Anthony Stark likes open spaces. 

"You may leave those on," Loki says when Coulson's down to his underclothing and his hands drop without hesitation to the elastic waistband. "For now."

"What are you planning to do?" Coulson asks as they near the Midgardian imitation of a greatroom where Thor hammered and screwed a line of chains into the walls. Sounding far too calm and curious for someone who anticipates death or dismemberment, he continues, "Is this some blood sacrifice thing?"

Instead of answering, Loki strides on through the doorway.

The Avengers are sitting or lying around the sunken space that designates the sitting area within the room, still wearing the clothes they were sleeping and taken in, all save Stark who apparently sleeps naked, and so that's how they found him and how they took him. Stark has his arm around Potts, and Rogers and Romanov sit huddled on the lip of the well as if conspiring in some plan. Banner is lying on his back in the well, staring up at the high ceiling. To a one the Avengers pull up as Thor and Loki enter, but their chains are (intentionally, Loki suspects) not slack enough to allow them to stand. Thor has always been rather callous, but he has a cruel streak Loki never fully realized, or a cruel streak he's rapidly developed. Rogers fights to rise anyway, ending up on one knee wrenching futilely at his length of chain, not for the first time.

"Wake up guys, the horned king and his cauldron born are back," Stark says as Loki and Thor enter. None of the Avengers appear to be sleeping, however, and Loki considers these words as they approach the group. _The horned king._ Loki has not donned his helm for their conquest, and while the title is not openly insulting, probably it's subtly derisive as all Stark's acerbic nicknames seem to be. Nevertheless Loki rather likes this moniker, though the cauldron born part makes no sense at all.

"We have returned, my pets," Thor announces.

"Agent, nice to see you," Stark says, looking Coulson up and down. "Wouldn't have pegged you for boxer-briefs."

"I'm full of surprises," Coulson answers before Loki shoves him stumbling down to the floor with Thor's humans. Thor drops his new hammer with its sensibly long, traditional haft at Loki's feet, then dumps the unconscious Barton by the others, tumbling him onto his back on the carpet. Thor begins to unlock the others' chains one by one.

Rogers regards Loki with naked hatred. Romanov looks calm to an unnatural degree, as though she gets taken prisoner every other weekend, and after he bounces to his feet with the energy of a much younger man, Coulson too seems merely watchful. Banner and Potts look nervous. Stark eyes Thor and Loki by turns like he's getting ready to make a move, but he remains sitting, already having attacked Loki once and experienced the painful physical repercussions and short period of unconsciousness that result. Romanov and Rogers stand alongside Coulson once freed, while Banner, Potts and Stark stay sitting on the floor.

With his legs crossed in front of him Stark's genitals are hanging out entirely on display without so much as an attempt made towards modesty, yet he seems untroubled by his nudity as few western Midgardians are, even now in their purportedly modern age. Loki wonders if this confidence is an act. Stark draws his attention for some reason Loki cannot put his finger on, and he pauses to study his enemy with all the trappings of his wealth and station stripped away. Stark looks reasonably strong for a human, subtly muscular. His chest is perfectly smooth, the hair on his face and between his legs groomed and trimmed in a way that evinces care and vanity both. His cock has been barbarically altered, the foreskin amputated and the glans exposed in the way a minority of Midgardian men's are. The blue mechanical device set into his chest glows like a jewel, and he has many old scars, especially on his hands, some from lacerations, many others definitely from burns. He's handsome enough, charismatic, and he holds his body in a surprisingly relaxed way considering he is the only naked person in the room, but it is Stark's expression that truly draws Loki in, a truculent sort of look suggesting he is unafraid, retaining some amount of control, prepared to make a show of defiance despite his state of vulnerability. As though he has a selfless streak, and Loki supposes he must, to have confronted a sorcerer-god-king as audaciously as Stark did in this very room not long ago. Even nude, Stark resembles the hero he imagines himself. But despite this extended examination, Loki still cannot decide whether Stark's air of self-assurance is feigned or true. Loki gazes at him long enough for Stark to notice, and Stark regards him warily. Loki smirks at him before at last turning away.

Thor finishes unlocking his former teammates and returns, taking up his place at Loki's side. After surveying their prisoners a few moments longer, Loki turns to Thor. "Well, there you have it. Your absurd wish fulfilled, with my compliments."

Thor unexpectedly jerks Loki to him by his hips. Taken off-balance, Loki falls into his arms, smiling. "Thank you, brother," Thor says, his voice full of emotion, and he kisses Loki deeply.

The greatroom takes on a new hush.

"Wow," Stark says disbelievingly into the quiet. "Incest, that's great. Not gross at all."

"Tony, shut up," Romanov says.

Thor breaks the kiss and turns to them with his brow furrowed like he's trying to make sense of a puzzle, and he plays with a handful of Loki's hair, letting three fingers fall over Loki's ear as though to protect him from Stark's foul allegations. A sweet, unconscious gesture. "Anthony, I have heard you boasting of bedding a pair of twins ere this."

"Uh... that's a totally different thing," Stark says. "First of all, I wasn't boasting, just telling someone who asked. Second, they were supermodels and they were there for me, not each other."

Romanov visibly rolls her eyes.

"I see no clear difference," Thor says, his frown deepening as though he's growing angry. 

"In all cases, the titillation of incest was entirely for my benefit," Stark explains. "You're gonna have to trust me that there's a difference and what you guys are doing is skeevy."

Still wrapped up within Thor's arms, Loki shakes his head at Stark, but unlike Thor, he's well amused. "As though the judgements of mortals mean anything to us." Loki looks back to Thor and can almost see the storm brewing around his eyes. "It's Midgard. Hypocrisy is their standard here. Consider his nonsense no further."

"Thor, think about this. This isn't you," Rogers says, his voice stern but his face earnest.

"Seriously, Loki," Stark grouses. "What the fuck did you do to him?"

"Nothing much." Loki spreads his free hand, smiling on. "A long, brotherly talk."

"Only helped me see sense," Thor answers seriously, releasing Loki and looking around before scooping up his hammer from the floor where he let it fall. "Made me realize truth and choose what truly matters. No mind control was involved, if that is what you fear." Thor accepted the loss of Mjolnir with a measure of grief but has not yet grown used to the limitation of being unable to call his weapon to his hand, and he still heedlessly drops his new weapon anywhere on his old impulse.

"Do not fear for me," Thor says. "Tremble, rather, for yourselves."

Rogers' expression darkens. Banner sighs. Romanov doesn't even blink.

"Unless you want each other harmed, you will serve us," Thor finishes, gesturing with his hammer to punctuate this announcement. "Take off your clothes."

They all exchange glances. "No," Rogers says after a moment, and he's clearly accustomed to speaking for all of the Avengers. Stark abruptly lets go of Potts and stands up, as though Thor's threat is one he wishes to face on his feet.

"Do as I command," Thor snarls. "Or you will be cause of and witness to terrible suffering." 

No one moves, and Thor narrows his eyes, then grabs the still-unconscious Barton, hauling him up by the back of his shirt. The technique of threatening this one to command that one's obedience worked with smooth effectiveness in taking those prisoners they didn't manage to catch asleep. Thor can be insightful, and he predicted with his insider knowledge just how to apply leverage to each of his teammates. Loki waits with raised eyebrows to see if this strategy will work now or whether one of their captives will actually need to die.

Thor presses his thumb and forefinger lightly into Barton's eye sockets. "Obey me, or I will put Clint's eyes out."

The first time Thor issued this particular warning, Loki was impressed, but it's now the third time Loki's heard this threat in eighteen hours. So like Thor to find a strategy that works and stick with said tack to and past the point of tediousness. A single seductive line to whisper in the ear of every maiden he covets. Opting to fight his way out of a situation Loki could easily have talked them from. The same old stories Thor is (like most Asgardians to be fair) content to tell again and again. Thor is a simple man. Yet Loki loves him just the same.

When Thor's fingers twitch as though to surge and tighten, Romanov is first to break. She unzips her black hoodie and shrugs out of it deftly, tossing it down on the carpet in front of her. Beneath the garment she's topless. She peels off her flared black pants and the underwear beneath them with no wasted movements, then stands there naked. Loki pauses to admire her form for a moment, because why not. Romanov's breasts are high and firm, her hips pronounced, her thighs thick and strong, the flame-red hair between her legs neatly shaped into a triangle, though the stubble of as-yet unattended-to regrowth mars the crisp effect a bit.

"Nat," Stark objects, even as his eyes flicker down to her breasts and quickly up again, a flawed-- nay, doomed effort to show respect, for his instincts go against the pretense of his better nature. Humans are so pitifully weak, Loki thinks, so utterly without discipline, but Stark's voice at least comes out strong. "Clint would not want you to submit to these assholes."

"Actually, I think he kind of would," Banner says.

"It's not his choice. It's mine," Romanov says evenly, and behind her, Banner silently strips off his T-shirt.

Thor dumps Barton to the floor once again. "And shall I repeat my threat?" Thor demands of Stark, pointing his hammer inches from Potts' face. "You will submit to us, or those you love will be the ones to suffer." Thor strides forward and grabs Potts' forearm with his free hand, pressing her wrist flat against the back of the expensive sofa. "Submit or I break every bone in her hand. Then work my way up to her face." Thor drags the bell of his hammer along Potts' pale arm. Potts stares at Stark, her eyes teeming with suppressed panic before they fill with tears.

Stark puts his hands up, capitulating quickly. "If I had any clothes, I would definitely be taking them off right now, no sweat, I'll do whatever. And I'll stop sowing revolt among the masses, promise."

"And you, Steven?" Thor shoves Potts towards them and turns his attention to Rogers. Stark and Romanov both move to catch her as she stumbles forward; Stark in a lurch, Romanov more lithely. Romanov catches and steadies Potts, and Stark slips a protective arm around her. With trembling fingers Potts begins unbuttoning her silken nightshirt as the tears spill over her cheeks. Beneath her clothes Potts is thin and predictably fragile-looking.

A brief staring contest ensues between Thor and Rogers, a slow-building struggle of wills, and then Thor takes three steps and pulls Stark to himself. For once Stark has no wisecrack to make, and his eyes are wide with the danger he's in. Stark squirms against Thor, his limp prick flopping around with his efforts to escape Thor's iron grip. Disregarding his efforts, Thor curls his fingers around Stark's throat just as Stark opens his mouth, staunching the flow of words before they can begin to spill out.

Loki waits curiously. They've taken a dozen prisoners tonight, and Rogers was the only one of the Avengers to fight, and luckily for the sake of their convenience, the last one in the Tower they took captive, for he was one teammate Thor guessed wrong on subduing. The sight of Stark collared, naked, and forced down to his knees turned Rogers cold and defiant rather than cooperative, and if he was willing to risk Stark's life then, he might remain so now. Rogers resisted with controlled fury, and Thor and Loki fought him together before Loki was able to snap the collar around his neck. A wall was destroyed in the process, but no matter, the Avengers' Tower has all the space they could want and more.

With a curiously apologetic look at Rogers, Coulson sheds his boxer briefs, kicking them sideways. Coulson performs no pubic grooming at all, Loki notes. Shades of Doom.

"They've already killed Nick Fury, Maria Hill, and Jane Foster," Coulson says quietly to Rogers. "And many others. On the helicarrier."

Rogers ignores them, eyes locked again with Thor's in their ferocious battle of wills. Loki glances at Thor for any signs of distress or regret, but his brother shows no acknowledgement of Jane Foster's name. All the better.

Thor's fingers tighten imperceptibly and Stark's wriggling turns into urgent writhing for air, his weak human fingers clawing at Thor's. Stark's prick begins to stiffen. 

" _Steve!_ " Potts nearly screams.

Loki's captivated by the sight of Stark's furious struggles and the exponentially increasing panic on his face. Witnessing Stark utterly losing his cool, hurtling towards death at Thor's hands, is briefly the revenge Loki never got to have. Loki stands rapt for it; he cannot take his eyes from the sight.

Until Rogers cries out only seconds later, conceding defeat. "Okay! Okay, stop. You win. Let him go."

When Thor lets go of his throat, Stark wrenches his head backwards against Thor's shoulder, desperately seeking air, coughing and hyperventilating by turns, and noisily.

Rogers sighs as he reaches down and pulls his T-shirt over his head, revealing his broad chest and impressively muscled midsection. His form resembles that of an Asgardian. His chest is as hairless as Stark's, as hairless as Thor's.

"Jesus Christ, Steve," Stark croaks. "Language, I know," he wheezes as Rogers strips off his shorts. Thor pitches Stark forward to the floor at Rogers' feet, inadvertently giving Stark an up-close eyeful. Rogers sidesteps the Stark projectile, half-catching him by stopping his sprawl forward with a hand. Stark spins clumsily around on all fours as Rogers drops his white undergarment and steps out of it. Potts rushes to Stark, falling to her knees beside him.

"Thought you were going to let him kill me," Stark says from the floor, his voice coming rough and pebbly from his bruised throat.

"No," Rogers answers, staring Thor down as Thor approaches him.

"Knew in my heart you would be a tighty whities guy," Stark says without lifting his head.

"Tony, can you shut up," Romanov snaps.

"Humor is how I deal with stuff, okay? I just got strangled!"

Ignoring Stark entirely, Thor shoves Rogers to his knees, then settles onto the couch in front of him.

Loki points at Romanov and at Stark. "Both of you," Loki commands, and he backs up to the bar counter, leaning against its solidness and crossing his arms.

Romanov intuits what he wants immediately and comes forward to him. Stark follows in her wake, still tenderly feeling the front of his abused neck. Romanov kneels smoothly, Stark more slowly, perhaps from reluctance, perhaps showing the first hints of his age.

But as Romanov figures out the fastenings in Loki's leggings, the picture of tranquility, Stark seems almost amused at the prospect of being so abased. "How prosaic," Stark says, still hoarse, a jaunty half-smile playing around his lips. "You're a garden variety rapist. With all that big talk first time around, I thought part of you actually wanted something halfway noble."

Loki is too tall for Romanov to easily suck him from a kneeling position, so he obligingly slides his feet farther apart, lowering himself into a widened stance sufficient for them to get their mouths on him. Still Romanov is going to be too short, he decides, the angle wrong and the spread of his legs too extended for his own comfort now, so once Romanov has opened his leggings he jumps backwards to sit on the bar, spreading his knees and settling himself so they can suck him while standing. Romanov rises and leans over his cock without being told.

Romanov has no hesitation in her. She puts her mouth to his cock like it might be her last time pleasuring someone in this life, lavishing her tongue around the head and sucking teasingly, then more fiercely. She sucks cock like she's been professionally trained, which Loki gathered from his time rooting around in Barton's mind that she may have been. Stark straightens too and stands beside her, watching balefully.

"But no, you just wanted someplace to stick your boner," Stark finishes as though he's bored. Romanov turns an inch and makes a face at Stark even with her mouth full of Loki's cock. "Did you like that, Nat? That I said he's just here to get his knob spit-polished? He's good to rape our faces and you're not gonna say anything, but I can't be coarse?"

"What I want is to throw you through the window again," Loki tells him with a hint of menace. "But one cannot always have one's first choices. Thor wants you alive, thus you're alive. But you will serve, and this is what will be expected of you." Loki strokes Romanov's wavy chin-length red hair, stretching out the loose curls with his fingers down as far as her shoulders. 

"Very nice," Loki compliments her. Pulling out of her mouth, he re-orients slightly towards Stark, then pauses. "Would you like to threaten me first?"

Stark laughs shortly, and Loki slides fingers around the back of his scalp and pulls him in, handling him by his skull and the scruff of his neck like an animal. Where Romanov's hair is soft and natural, Stark's feels crisp under his fingers, as though lightly stiffened from some holding mist or styling pomade. Loki drags his fingers forward and down Stark's cheeks to gently caress the front of Stark's neck. Stark flinches from even the lightest brushes against his injured flesh.

"I will listen," Loki adds in a murmur, passing fingers over the artery in Stark's neck to discover his heart is pounding. Stark leans away, a passive attempt to evade Loki's touch, and he bends down willingly enough once Loki lets go of his neck. Loki jabs two fingers far less delicately into the hollow under Romanov's chin, just for comparison's sake. As Loki measures the honesty of her peace, Romanov gives him a questioning look, but her heartbeat is slow and her behavior a truth: she remains tranquil inside and out.

Stark's style is less polished but his technique equally pleasing. Stark sucks like practiced men do, with the knowledge and familiarity of firsthand experience, likely replicating what he himself best likes. He's sloppy and noisy and shameless, with periods of intense suction and many awkward slurping sounds as the pressure diminishes before he sucks anew. Stark gags, pauses and works past the gag response, keeping his head down. Meanwhile Romanov proves a well-trained expert even on the assist, slipping a hand under Loki's tunic and across his lower abdomen, where she runs her fingernails gently over his skin, looking up at his face to check for his satisfaction.

"Look at you, so eager to debase yourself, to please." Loki catches up her wrist. "You think if you play the perfect little pet, we will spare you harm?"

Romanov shrugs. "Worth a shot," she replies in her clipped tones.

"And you," Loki says, still holding her wrist but turning his face to Stark. "Where is all your defiant bluster now?"

Stark lets Loki's prick slip from his mouth and straightens to answer. "This doesn't seem like an ideal situation for defiance," Stark says, his face flushed red and his voice unusually flustered, his cheeks smeared and his chin coated with wetness. "But if that's what gets you off, okay. I like to put in an effort for my hookups. Point of pride, you know."

Loki rolls his eyes and drops Romanov's wrist.

Stark throws a glance over his shoulder at Rogers, who by now has Thor's cock in his mouth. "Okay so--I'm going to put on my armor," Stark says, quirking his eyebrows suggestively, as though he describes an erotic scenario, and he seems to have regained his overconfident sort of composure. "I'm going to fire all kinds of weapons at you. Every cartridge on the suit. All the repulsor beams, tuned to their highest setting." Romanov drops her head and covers her face briefly with one hand. Stark rambles on as though he doesn't notice, waxing creative. "You try to duck out of the line of fire, but you can't in time, and it hurts like hell. Then I jump on top of you and punch you like twenty times, using the propulsion of the repulsors, until I beat the snot--"

"Enough," Loki says warningly, putting a finger to Stark's wet lips.

"Oh, I thought you wanted that," Stark says with a furrowed brow and feigned confusion. "I mean you asked for defiance twice, seemed pretty clear."

"I forgot how much you like to hear yourself talk," Loki says, running a hand through Stark's short dark hair. "So much I cannot hear myself think. Now put your ridiculous mouth to better use. Do well, bring me my pleasure swiftly, and when my brother fucks Rogers--" he smiles at the expression on Stark's face-- "--I will make sure his prick is sufficiently slick. I am afraid Thor is not so careful about such things."

Stark has no poker face at all, and he looks appalled, then draws a breath and goes back down with no further mouthing off. Stark gives a messy cocksucking, but he pulls out every stop, makes every effort, tickling with his tongue and taking Loki impressively far down. Stark deep-throats him and gags again but after a moment surmounts the reflex. Romanov reaches under Stark's chin to lightly stroke Loki's sack, weighing his balls in her hand. She applies light pressure, even teases beneath at his entrance, and soon Loki's thrusting into Stark's mouth, then coming into his throat. Stark keeps his mouth open beautifully, swallowing rapidly multiple times in succession, his eyes squeezed closed and his forehead wrinkled.

"Oh, I like you after all, Stark," Loki tells him when he pulls away, eyes watering and face flushed. Loki strokes Stark's neck where the imprints of Thor's fingers mottle Stark's tanned skin with reddened marks of abrasion, bruising-to-be that has yet to fully deepen and develop. Again Stark tries to shy away from his touch. "You have one redeeming quality at least."

"Hope it won't bother you the feeling isn't mutual," Stark says, still managing to sound cynical, wiping his mouth with the back of his arm in a way that still leaves saliva drying in spots on one side of his face.

"It does not," Loki assures him with a smile.

"Do you live up to your end of an agreement?" Stark asks, his eyes back on Thor and Rogers.

"Of course," Loki says, a gracious lie.

Thor is relishing his dominance of Rogers, but no more than a minute later as they behold the scene, Thor draws Rogers up and around the furniture, then pushes him onto his stomach over the back of the couch.

Stark glances at Loki urgently, but Loki acts before Stark can speak. True to his word, at least for today, Loki reaches out and performs a quick cantrip to slick both Thor's cock and Rogers' entrance. Rogers yelps a little, probably from the temperature of Loki's hands-free intervention, and Thor flashes Loki a quick and appreciative grin. Then Thor is on Rogers, then in him. For a moment Loki watches Rogers struggle. His hands clench into fists and loosen only to clench again, his face twists in agony, and he shouts wordlessly as Thor enters him.

"Thor!" Stark almost yells. "How can you do this?!"

"Make ready, Anthony," Thor says, still focused on Rogers. "You are next."

Stark looks at the pair with openly sickened despair on his face for all to see, looking as tormented as though it's him being taken, suffering Thor's new malice personally.

Thor points at Romanov and curls a finger at her, and after a searching glance at Loki she obeys. Loki watches with Stark as Thor pulls Romanov close and kisses her, pressing her mouth hard to his as he fucks Rogers faster and more forcefully. Romanov cooperates, sitting on the back of the couch where Thor sets her, though with one hand she pets Rogers' back in small, comforting motions Thor seems not to notice.

"Here," Loki says to Stark, and provides the same service to Stark as he did Rogers, parting the entrance to his body, wetting him a lot and stretching him a little without physically touching him. The best way to perform the spell is without warning, before the recipient's muscles have the opportunity to tense up. Stark gasps in surprise and stumbles a step forward, his mouth emptying out an entertaining cascade of Midgardian imprecations, and Loki catches him with a smile.

"What the fuck?!" Stark finishes in a hiss.

"This is fun, you were right," Loki says to Thor, but Thor is focused entirely on crushing his hips with vicious force into Rogers'. Stark yanks backwards out of Loki's arms, backing up like he has somewhere to run to, but then he stops, standing fixed and stricken. Loki moves in silently behind him and slips an arm around the solidness of his chest, leaning in to kiss and nibble at his neck. Stark stiffens and makes a small, unhappy sound. 

"Everything you have," Loki whispers into his ear. "Everything you are belongs to us now." Stark makes no answer. Loki rests his chin on Stark's shoulder, clasping and idly touching him as they watch Thor and Rogers together. No wine, no liquor, no ambrosia in the halls of Valhalla could be as sweet or intoxicating as Stark's tangible despair. When Loki licks the ridge of Stark's ear, Stark groans unhappily, and Stark stifles a cry when he bites the lobe. Within a couple of minutes Thor jerks Rogers' hips to his hard enough to break human bones as he comes, then pulls out without ceremony and pats Rogers twice on the back.

Thor's cock is smeared with Rogers' blood, but he's heedless. Thor points at Potts and snaps his fingers. Potts never finished undressing, and still wears a pair of sleep shorts. Potts seems to have regained her composure, though her face is red and blotchy from her recent crying. Thor leads her and Romanov to the front of the couch, sitting each woman on either side of him. Thor is already nearly hard again. Romanov takes note and reaches into Thor's lap, caressing him dexterously--without prompting--while Thor takes turns kissing first her, then Potts.

Rogers stays where Thor left him briefly, then allows himself to slide down to the floor.

Stark jerks forward involuntarily like he wants to move, then turns his head into Loki's cheek. "Please."

"Please...?"

"Let me go," Stark says softly.

Loki breathes in the scent of him. "Ask properly."

"I don't--" Stark starts. Loki pushes lightly down on his shoulder, and Stark processes the meaning of the pressure right away. He turns and Loki allows him to rotate, his face close to Loki's before he drops to one knee, bowing his head. "Please," Stark repeats.

Loki waves him away with a small nod, interested to see what Stark means to do. Offer himself up to Thor? Try to run? Surely he's too intelligent to attempt again to fight. But Stark only hastens to where Rogers sits crumpled behind the couch. Sitting down and scooting close, Stark tentatively goes to wrap his arms around Rogers. For a second Rogers visibly tenses, freezing up, but then he abruptly swivels into what becomes a tight hug, embracing Stark in return. Stark rocks them together faintly. Rogers looks shell-shocked, tears in his glazed eyes before he squeezes them closed, and his shoulders shake. Stark murmurs a host of useless platitudes to Rogers: _It's okay, I got you, it's going to be okay._

Loki watches them, thinking Thor got it backwards when he said Stark would be leverage to use against Rogers.

Loki's so distracted by the sight of Stark and Rogers, he almost misses when Thor comes for the second time, thrusting up into Romanov's hands. Romanov discreetly wipes Thor's emission and Rogers' smeared blood off on the side of the couch, staining the fine leather.

"Now kiss," Thor says merrily, putting a hand on each of their backs and urging them together.

Romanov looks at Potts consideringly, as though gauging how okay she is with this new instruction. Romanov thinks everything over, it would seem. Potts remains composed, and so Romanov tilts her head sideways as she leans in and their lips meet over Thor's lap. The kiss begins hesitantly, but then Romanov slides her untainted hand into Potts' hair and the kiss turns passionate, as though she has been waiting her entire life to press her lips against Potts' this way. Thor watches them avidly.

Banner and Coulson remain in the same places where they started, unobtrusive in their silence. Banner sits hunched over, as though trying to compress himself as small as possible, and he keeps his eyes fixed on the carpet, but Coulson stands by and watches with his back straight and his eyes detached, as though he dislikes what he sees, and does not wish to look, yet forces himself.

"You are steely, Coulson," Loki says, wandering to them. He winds a hand into Coulson's hair before he sits, dragging Coulson down with him. "I can appreciate that." Taking a page from Thor's book, he pulls both of them in, then kisses each of them in turn. Banner's lips might as well be frozen under his. Banner holds little interest to him, for there's nothing at all of the monster in his human form. Loki switches to Coulson, who had the temerity to shoot him and the even greater temerity to live through a perfectly good attempted murder, and the situation is much improved.

"I love watching two beautiful women kiss," Thor declares, clapping his hands together once joyfully. Then he manhandles Romanov to his other side, depositing her nearly into Potts' lap, and gets up off the couch. "But I have not forgotten you, Bruce," Thor adds, beckoning him.

"Lucky me," Banner says quietly, but with resoluteness he pulls himself to his feet.

Loki stops paying attention to the others and tunes everything out, for Coulson is surprisingly good at kissing, and Loki becomes engrossed in the tease, in the push and pull of lips and tongue. Loki lies back on the floor, with little effort dragging Coulson half over him, then slides a hand around to the small of Coulson's back. They kiss for a long time, but Coulson refrains from touching him at all in response, and when Loki gropes a hand down, he finds Coulson's prick remains soft.

"Does my body not arouse you?" Loki asks, hearing the husky quality in his voice. "Do you not want to take me? I might let you."

"Have a care," Thor calls. "You are mine, brother, and mine alone."

Coulson clears his throat. "That's okay. You're not really my type, Loki."

Loki smiles broadly at the out-of-place dose of blunt honesty. Truly, it only makes Loki like Coulson more. "Tell me about your 'type,'" he urges. "Do you prefer my brother to me?"

At some point Thor shed his clothes, and any man--or woman for that matter--would have to be mad or dangerously masochistic to claim a preference for Thor to him while Thor strides naked around the room with his cock all bloodstained.

"My type starts with female, human, non-murderers," Coulson says, and Loki gets the impression Coulson would exhibit this same mild-mannered mien were his life threatened, were the world ending.

"I suppose that rules out taking on a different haircolor," Loki says with another amused smile. "Tell me, how did you know Thor killed Maria?"

"I didn't know for sure." Coulson gives him an unusually hard look. "But it's your style. And his now."

"Sorry about that," Loki says, not particularly sorry and not putting any great effort into the falsehood.

Loki pulls him back into another kiss, harsher this time. He anticipates Coulson will match his aggression, be revved up and antagonized by confirmation of Maria's death, but Coulson is evidently difficult to provoke, continuing with the same dispassionate, teasing softness as before, as though he knows only one way to kiss. Loki's wavering on thoughts of how best to manage Thor's sudden and unexpected possessiveness (he'd made a comment of a similar nature after they left Latveria, something about Doom learning not to touch what wasn't his, though Loki thought this remark merely a miscellaneous Thor grumble and wrote his words off at the time) when he glances over at Stark and becomes distracted.

Stark still sits holding Rogers, continuing the tiny, comforting swaying motion, but Stark is staring up over Rogers' shoulder with another particularly distressed look on his face. Loki turns his head, trying to follow Stark's line of sight. He has to push Coulson off him and sit up, but what he finally sees is Thor down on his knees, pressing Potts' waifish body up against the counter, her lustrous sleep shorts tugged down around an ankle and no undergarment to find beneath them, and one of her legs is slung over Thor's shoulder.

"Anthony!" Thor calls. 

"What," Stark says, sounding almost broken.

"Come," Thor says, pushing Potts' leg off. He rises and takes Potts by the shoulders, giving her a starting shove towards Stark. "I wish to see you make love to Pepper."

Stark blanches, his hold on Rogers loosening. "What? Why?"

Thor gives him an irritated face. "Would you rather I take you while you weep and squeal?"

Stark looks up at Thor as startled and bewildered as a child before he turns angry. "What did Loki _do_ to you?!" Stark shouts.

"Move," Thor says, his voice cold. "Now." He's addressing Stark, but Potts totters unsteadily over to where Stark sits, as though Thor's lips and tongue have emptied all the feeling out of her legs. Stark gets up to take her hand, and she draws him over to one of the couches.

"It's okay, Tony," Potts says in a rush.

"I don't think I can get hard," Stark says, glancing at Thor and Loki in turn, as if they must be mad as Odr to think he could. His cock isn't quite limp, though.

"Certainly you can," Loki calls. "I will choke you this time."

Stark covers his neck protectively, and Potts reaches down and clasps Stark's half-tumescent prick, stroking him. Stark lets out a long, tense exhalation, as if he's been holding his breath.

"Are you okay?" Stark murmurs to Potts, turning to face her fully. "With this, seriously?"

"I don't want him to hurt you," Potts says, huddling against Stark and speaking into his shoulder. Loki laughs aloud, and Potts looks over at him with dismay, but Stark ignores him entirely, focused on Potts.

Potts continues stroking Stark until she decides he's ready--and she seems to have the experience to know--and then hurriedly lies down on her back on the couch. Dropping to one knee, Stark dips his head down to kiss her, all gentleness, testing her wetness with a finger. When he goes to lick at her sex, though, Potts stops him with a hand on his shoulder.

"Just do it, Tony," Potts says.

Stark listens to her, and he mounts her and eases in like she's a piece of precious china. As he begins pumping gently between her legs, Stark begins whispering, barely audibly, what start out as sweet nothings in her ear but soon turn specific to the experience. _You're so beautiful. I adore you. You know I'll always love you, no matter what happens. It's okay. Don't think about it._

Thor sits naked and watches them greedily, his eyes full of open covetousness, Loki feels unsure of which party. The whole business is odd, for Thor rarely if ever wants to simply sit and watch anything. Thor is a participant through and through, and even now his cock swells with imminent renewal.

Once he gets underway, once his prick is sheathed inside her, Stark seems to lean into the exhibitionism, but Potts remains frigid. (Loki has discovered that like the Asgardian word, the Midgardian term also references coldness, a cruel but all too typical trick of nomenclature Loki privately resents.) Her cheeks stay reddened throughout as Stark fucks her, her body lies stiff and unyielding as a board, and occasionally she glances over in Thor's direction, prompting even more of Stark's murmured litany of reassurances. _Pretend we're alone. Don't look at him. Just you and me, Pep._

While Loki's normally enthusiastic about forays into voyeurism, the scene they make together is so saccharine on Stark's part and so uncomfortable on Potts', watching them leaves him feeling unsettled, almost sullied. Loki pulls Coulson back to him and kisses him again. He glances at Stark now and then, pressing Coulson's head to his neck and ear.

Loki turns his head a moment too late to see Stark finish with his own pleasure for Thor's entertainment. Afterward Stark moves down Potts' body, again as though to apply his mouth to her quim, but she stops him with a hand tapping his shoulder and a slight shake of her head.

Rogers remains sitting where Thor dropped him, his head down. Banner has tentatively joined Romanov on the couch, and Loki can see they are holding hands, gripping tight to one another. Barton wakes up after a time, and Thor makes use of him too.

For the rest of the evening Loki lets Coulson simply sit beside him on the cusp of the little well that delineates the sitting area, and together they watch Thor tyrannize the Avengers one by one and two by two, his whims hitting them as fast and cruel as lightning. For the first time, Loki gets the disturbing sense that he's set something in motion he may not be able to fully control.

*

"Come, my pets," Thor says, holding Potts' discarded shorts to his face and inhaling deeply, every ounce of him without shame. "Goodnight, Loki."

Loki blinks at him. "Where are you going?"

"You are going," Thor says. "This hall shall be my bedchamber. I've already put the chains in."

Loki's taken aback. "Are you-- ousting me?"

Thor raises his brows inquisitively. "No. I only thought you would want your own space. As we have at home?"

Thor intending to sleep apart from him is contrary to what Loki expected, but he has no time to analyze the ejection and what it means just then. "I want to keep Stark and Romanov for now," Loki counters.

For a moment Thor looks like he might argue, and his eyes flicker over Stark and then Romanov as they're traded like pawns in a chess game, but ultimately Thor shrugs acquiescence. "As you wish. May they warm your bed well."

Stark lies in the fetal position on the floor where Thor so recently discarded him. "Get him up," Loki says to Coulson, the only one of the men left unviolated. "Come."

Coulson goes to Stark and uncurls him, lifting him carefully. Stark flinches and once hauled up, Stark struggles silently in Coulson's arms as though he doesn't want hands on him.

"Put me down," Stark protests, finding his voice, and Coulson obliges him. Stark stands on his own feet reluctantly, with Romanov's arm slipping around his waist, and Loki leads the three of them into the elevator. Despite Loki's earlier preparation, Stark walks with obvious pain.

"Take us to your bedchamber," Loki says to Stark, because it stands to reason Stark's private room will be the most luxurious area in the building.

Stark stares into space, his gaze distant. When he doesn't respond, Loki pins him against the elevator wall with his body, then shoots out a hand and grips Romanov by the throat. Romanov evinces surprise and contained fear, but after the glass cage deception on the flying warship Loki trusts her superficial reactions not a whit. For a Midgardian, Romanov is undoubtedly a master liar.

"Tony," Romanov says, and Stark blinks and swallows and looks at her, returning to the present.

"It's... the eighty-second floor," Stark says numbly.

"Romanov, if you would," Loki says, releasing her, and he leans in and devours Stark's mouth.

"I'm ready to appeal to your humanity now," Stark says when Loki pulls back an inch, like he's trying to make a joke and everything in him is failing.

"Oh, I was hoping you would," Loki says. "So I might avail you of reality."

Romanov and Coulson are silently watching him, and Loki smiles at them before he turns back to Stark and kisses him again. Their bodies are pressed together, and Stark's shaking under him. As before, his fear is delicious.

"You're trembling," Loki says, deliberately predatory, running his hands down Stark's torso, past his groin to the underneath, stroking along his sack and cupping his balls. "Shaking like a leaf in high winds. Are you so terrified, you with all your bravado?"

"It's just been kind of a long night," Stark says, his voice weak.

Loki could squeeze and put Stark into a whole other dimension of pain, but he decides Stark is miserable enough for now. Likewise he decides not to bother with chaining the three of them. Thor's hostages are enough to assure good behavior. Stark's bedchambers, a whole suite of rooms, do not disappoint, and Loki passes the night alone in Stark's plush, expansive bed.

*

"Where are we?" Romanov asks the next morning in Stark's private sitting room, when Loki comes out at dawn to stand beside her as she stares out of the wall-to-wall picture windows. Loki gets the impression Romanov has not slept, or hasn't slept much. Stark is sitting on a sofa in the next room with a blanket around his shoulders and the Midgardian television on, leaning in towards the set, though Stark gives Loki a long look when he enters.

"I am not sure," Loki says truthfully. "Somewhere in Greenland, or northern Russia."

"You know those two places aren't even remotely close, right?" Stark calls.

Outside the Avengers' Tower lies a vast landscape of untouched beauty in the early light, with a blue body of water below and mountains beyond fading into shadow. A long, irregular line of evergreen trees, lush and deep and green, surround the pristine lake, lining the shoreline as though for privacy for secret lovers beyond, hidden where the water laps. The air outside tastes clean and clear in the lungs and its unpolluted clarity makes visibility excellent, and the vista as pretty as a painting. Loki stands and appreciates the view. Midgard is largely an ugly mess, but this muddled world has its charms.

Loki glances around. "Where is Coulson?"

"He fell asleep about an hour ago," Romanov says.

Stark seems to have pulled himself together emotionally after Thor's mistreatment the night previous, and he wanders over, still wearing the blanket draped over his shoulders. His neck is black and blue on three sides, the images of Thor's clamping outstretched fingermarks clearly placed, and he's not moving well. "It was on the news. Stark Tower vanished. Big city block left full of the rubble of the parking garage. They don't know where we, or it, went."

"As intended," Loki says.

"Sit, Tony," Romanov says softly, resting a hand on his shoulder. "Take it easy. If you need something, Coulson or I--"

Stark shrugs off her hand stubbornly. "What I want to know is... how is the plumbing and electricity and climate control and everything still working when you transplanted my building to the middle of nowhere?"

Loki has not a clue, not that he's about to let their captives know that. Doom handled this aspect of their plan, and Victor not only knows all there is to know about Midgard, he also thinks assiduously of everything. Loki only gives Stark a lazy smile for an answer.

"You broke JARVIS," Stark says accusingly.

Doom made sure of that, yes. "Can you blame me, after last time?"

"And the internet?" Stark gazes at him. "How did you cut the internet without affecting the cable? How did either of you even know what the internet is?"

Loki only smiles.

"Will you at least--what happened to the night cleaning crew, and the people on third shift?" When Loki stares at him, not comprehending the meaning of these terms, Stark clarifies. "Everyone else. All the other people in my building when you uprooted it?"

"Oh, they're dead," Loki says nonchalantly, understanding. "We killed them."

"Christ," Stark breathes, standing still and stunned as he processes this news, and then he huffs a twisted, pained laugh. Though he keeps speaking, he starts to walk away in his new uncomfortable shuffle, as though he expects no answers at this point. "So. No mind control was involved, Thor said. That was bullshit, right? That seemed like bullshit."

As Loki is deciding how to answer the door swings inward. Banner's standing outside bearing two cooling plates piled with what look like triangles of fried Midgardian bread, one in his hand and the other balanced on his forearm. Stark stops walking off and comes back, looking at Banner searchingly.

"Hi," Banner says, socially awkward as usual; Loki has done sufficient scrying to know. "Thor told me to make everyone breakfast."

Loki waves him in and picks up a cinnamon-scented triangle as Banner passes. "What is this?"

"French toast," Stark says.

"Hmm." Loki inspects the slice he holds, then points at Banner with the narrowest angle. "It does not matter to me if you poison our food, but if an adulterant affects the taste your friends will all be sampling the fare." Loki takes a bite but registers no sinister flavors, only butter and sugar and cinnamon. 

"Uh, okay," Banner says. "I figured we'd all be eating it. None of it's poisoned."

Loki swallows and passes the rest of the wedge to Stark. "I don't like being--" Stark begins, but he realizes what he's saying halfway through when Loki raises his eyebrows. "-- handed things," Stark finishes as he takes the slice, then lets it dangle between thumb and forefinger for a second before shoring up his grip.

Stark looks questioningly at Banner as he brings the piece of French toast to his lips. Banner gives him a little shrug and nod, after which Stark takes a bite.

"Go," Loki says, dismissing him. "Leave the plates." To Stark and Romanov he says, "Eat."

Banner departs, and absently Stark finishes the rest of the half-slice of French toast, as if only because he finds it in his hand, and he shows no inclination to obtain a second.

"You seem... better," Loki says, skimming a hand over Stark's shoulder when merely circling him once fails to garner the reaction he desires. "Last night you were almost catatonic."

"I don't stay down," Stark says briskly, ignoring Loki's hand though the muscles of his back tense somewhat to be touched. "Look, what is this about?"

"You had your first taste last night," Loki says. "Was that not adequate to give you an idea?"

Stark turns to face him. "Right, so instead of ruling Earth, you're settling for most but not all of a single building--a very nice building, I'll grant you--in the middle of some wilderness? Ruling over six plus one subjects? Because Coulson sounds like he was a random last-minute add-on."

Loki considers. "I would not say he was random." Romanov comes over and takes six triangles, picking up Stark's hand and putting two pieces into his palm, then closing his fingers around them. "As to the extent of our domain, we are working on it," Loki continues. "Thor allowed S.H.I.E.L.D. to make off with my scepter, so some finesse is called for. Fear not, you do serve the future rulers of this world."

"Lucky us," Stark says.

"Lucky you," Loki agrees. "Remember, the alternative is out through one of these windows." Taking a handful of French toast slices, Loki leaves for Thor's floor.

*

Unlike Thor, Loki gives his pets free reign of his floor. Coulson, Romanov and Stark take all of a day to get in the habit of assisting Banner with meal preparation in the kitchen on the eighty-second floor, and after Banner leaves to take food to Thor, the remaining three eat in the kitchen together, so when Loki rises in the mood to begin his planned project, he knows where to find them.

The scent that wafts from the kitchen this morning is that of freshly baked bread--the Midgardian food named bagels, as it turns out, accented with seeds, nuts and onions, and though he will probably eat little, the smell strikes Loki as pleasant. The three of them are talking, and Loki catches Thor's name said in Romanov's voice, but Loki is mostly disinterested in the specifics of their conversation. The mice will speak of the cats. Romanov falls silent and they all look up when he appears in the doorway.

"Stark," Loki says, coming a few feet into the room.

Stark leans back in his chair. "Yeah."

"Do you have a forge?"

Stark narrows his eyes as though the question is strange. "Yeah. I have two. You want to make a sword or something?"

"And do you have a kiln?"

"Yeah," Stark says. "I have everything. Let me guess, you're into pottery?"

"Be quiet and take me there. The forge first."

"One second," Stark says. It's been only two days and Stark is already testing, always testing the boundaries of what he's allowed. Asking Loki to wait is not new. Stark goes over to the coffee press and tops off the black drink in his cup. "I'll be on either the eighty-ninth floor or the ninety-first if you need me," he tells Romanov and Coulson with a lift of his eyebrows, toasting them with his brimming mug in a smooth and confident movement as he sweeps past Loki, and by some ill-gotten blessing of the Norns he avoids splashover of his beverage. "Or the eighty-fifth, it's an adventure. This way please."

The kiln is of modern Midgardian make, large and satisfactory enough should he decide to work with fused glass. Stark has a sophisticated forge as well that heats with natural gas, but Loki prefers the old-fashioned, traditional coal forge. All three of the rooms Stark shows him have plenty of space in which to work. He settles down in the room with the kiln to draw and tinker with options for the design, mostly because the room with the kiln is secluded and private and has a cushioned window seat.

Loki removes his jewelcrafting kit from his pocket dimension and sets it on the table in front of the window seat. The carved wooden box is by far the largest item he commonly stores within, bigger even than the Tesseract. Loki sets the box on the table, flipping the magical lock and lifting the lid. Stark, standing beside him, peers in. One side of the chest holds precious metals in spooled wire, sheets, and rods, and on the other side his tools, his pliers and mallets, pot and wax, tongs and triblets, ink and paper.

Stark inspects the materials with growing interest, in no hurry to lean away from the box, and Loki senses his hunger. 

Stark tilts his head thoughtfully. "You're going to make... jewelry?"

"Yes."

Stark's clear desire to be somewhere Loki isn't wars with his curiosity, and the latter wins out. "Can I watch?"

The prospect of jewelcrafting always makes Loki feel mellow. "If you are quiet and do not disturb me mid-spell. But I will only be sketching today."

"You're making magic jewelry?"

"That is the plan."

Stark rubs his goatee as if pondering. "The One Ring of our time, I assume."

"No, not a ring. I will be mounting a large stone in the piece, so probably a torc, or a diadem, or even a slave bracelet."

Stark's brow furrows at this last. Loki catches his hand, delicately tracing lines and circles around his wrist and towards his knuckles. "A slave bracelet connects a ring or two to a bracelet around the wrist, often with a webbing over the back of the hand. I find them attractive."

"That tickles," Stark says, and Loki lightly scratches his nails over the affected area before releasing Stark's hand.

"Get on your knees," Loki says, oddly turned on for no reason he can immediately determine, save perhaps for Stark's warmth and the smell of his mortal skin and hair.

"So you can tickle the back of my throat, got it," Stark sighs as he eases down to the floor.

"You _are_ entertaining," Loki says as he unfastens his leggings. "But so uncouth."

Loki pulls Stark's head forward to his cock, aiming to fill Stark's mouth before he comes up with a rejoinder, but Stark is quick-witted. "Well you must like uncouth, because you keep making me do this," he manages before Loki pushes his head down.

Loki lets Stark suck him while he goes back to drawing. He begins with his standout idea for a diadem. Usually he is far more decisive in all his affairs, but the housing of an Infinity Stone is no casual matter. He will use an alloy of yellow gold in whatever he fashions, he knows that much. Gold and green are his colors, and the Time Stone has the rich, bright hue of an emerald with perfect cut and depth.

Stark licks and sucks him to full hardness quickly.

Loki sketches only the vaguest hints of what will be engraved runes, because runes should not be rendered idly, no matter whether in ink on paper or with a knife in wood or a chisel in hot metal, lest their power be diluted.

When the pleasure and need from his cock begins to border on overwhelming and he loses all interest in what he's drawing, Loki has to put his pen down. Loki shifts forward and tilts his hips up on the cushions, giving Stark more access, and Stark wriggles a hand underneath him. Loki winds his own fingers into Stark's hair, his forearms rising and falling with Stark's bobbing head. As Loki's getting close, Stark slips a fingertip up into his entrance and gently frigs him while sucking, putting pressure on the middle of his perineum with one thumb, all of which serves to tip Loki efficiently over the edge. The whole experience is mindless, over and done with in under five minutes, and entirely what Loki's in the mood for, honed in as he is on his project. He pets the softness of Stark's head for a few moments after he finishes coming deep into Stark's throat.

Then he refastens his leggings, picks up his pen again and finishes sketching the diadem. Stark sits on the floor for a while, staring at nothing, but after a time he stands back up and watches Loki work. Loki draws a slave bracelet with the stone set into the center of the back of his hand amid a spiderweb of fine-linked chains. He likes the look of the slave bracelet and pauses over that page, but he continues brainstorming nevertheless. He draws a ring that would be worn over two fingers, but scraps that idea on the grounds that his spellcasting would be restricted from the hindered movement. Idly, with no intention of following through and possessing no high-quality leather and velvet on hand, he sketches a scabbard for a dagger with the stone inlaid and another pattern of runes heading downwards. He starts on a torc design where the stone is set into the center of a spiral. If he elects to go with a torc, he will direct weld the gold in the forge rather than cast with a mold.

"You know, Steve draws," Stark ventures.

Loki reconsiders the whorls of the spiral and begins a new sketch with the stone in the center of a fire design. He elongates the pendant, bringing the illustrated fire higher, embellishing it into a blaze. "Is he any good?"

"Yeah. He's really good."

"Are you volunteering his talents?" Loki asks, but he hears approaching footsteps, and a moment later Thor swings the door open with enough slamming force to make it rebound against the doorstop.

"The Tower is too large," Thor says. "We should procure a smaller lodging. I was forced to inquire with Natasha as to where to find you."

"You have found me," Loki says, putting down his pen.

"And Anthony is here," Thor says, as if only now noticing Stark. "You should kneel when I enter the room."

Stark requires no threats upon Potts or Rogers to silently drop to one knee, and though his expression suggests he's not happy to yield this way, his face also holds obvious fear and strain to be in Thor's presence. Thor has become enthusiastic about the kneeling. Loki likes the commons to prostrate themselves as much as the next god, but even he feels like the demand for a show of physical submission every single time their mortals see him is overkill. But Thor is Thor.

"What are you doing?" Thor asks when his eyes fall upon the sketching of the fire pendant.

"The Eye of Agamotto is notoriously mercurial," Loki says, fanning out the pages he's sketched and scribbled over to display them to Thor. "I intend to extract the Time Stone from the necklace and house it in a new ornament. We discussed this, do you not recall?"

"Hm," Thor says. "As you like. I have come for the Tesseract."

Loki blinks. "Why?"

"I want to go out. I need some air and entertainment."

Loki looks at him bewildered. "Why? We are not ready to reveal ourselves so openly. Let me finish this first. It will be the work of a moon's turn, no more." 

"No," Thor says obstinately. "I need to stretch my legs and swing my hammer. I was not meant to be caged up like this for fortnights on end."

"We have been here two days."

"Give me the Tesseract, Loki."

There's a note of warning in Thor's voice, a subtle inflection that tells of loss of patience, and a hint of anger.

Still, while Thor can be capricious, he usually responds to reason, so Loki reasons with him. "Thor, you do not need the Tesseract to get air. And entertainment you have in the form of--"

" _Loki!_ " Thor shouts. "Give me the Tesseract now. The relic is ours, not yours alone. You have it in your possession by my intervention. Do not make me ask again."

Loki stares up at Thor, shocked from his tactics of persuasion by the sudden hot intensity of Thor's anger, but at length he rises to his feet and opens the void seam to his pocket dimension. Gripping one handle of the Tesseract, he draws the cylinder out long-ways and catches the weight of it in the center with his other hand, passing it to Thor.

Thor nods once, satisfied. "I left mine with yours. Kindly do not slaughter them all."

Realizing Thor speaks of their prisoner-pets takes Loki a second. "After all the trouble we went to to keep them alive, I am not like to kill them unless they're extraordinarily annoying."

"And do not touch Steven. He is mine alone," Thor says, turning to leave.

Loki lets this edict pass without challenge, for the humans mean less than nothing to him. He reaches out and tries to catch at Thor's elbow, but too late, and Thor escapes even his quick fingers. "We agreed to do this together. Where do you go? When will you be back?"

"Where I go, and when I am back," Thor says, and he strides out with the great heft of the Tesseract held effortlessly in one hand.

Stark stands up slowly after Thor leaves, using the counter as leverage. Wisely, he says nothing.

And Loki slowly sinks back into the cushions of the window seat. He remains that way in brooding silence for a minute, and the minute becomes three, and he would have to be blind, deaf, and without sorcery not to notice how antsy Stark is growing as he shifts his weight from one foot to the other. He wants to see Potts and Rogers and Barton. Three minutes becomes five becomes ten.

"Can I go?" Stark asks finally.

"Yes," Loki says, because while he has no objection to making Stark endure frustration, he would rather mull over Thor's strange shift in demeanor alone. "Get out."

*

Loki tries to work on his project but finds he cannot concentrate. He returns from the kiln room to find most of their prisoners watching the television screen. They all look at him, some guiltily, when he comes in, and Barton quickly uses a small rectangular device to turn the television off. 

"What is going on?" Loki says slowly.

"Thor," Romanov says after a moment, as though she's the only one unafraid to speak.

"Show me," Loki demands, and Barton turns the television back on. Potts looks particularly apprehensive, probably of Loki's anger. As the picture loads Loki refocuses on the display, and onscreen a man behind a desk is talking about casualties, about numbers injured and a body count, warning for graphic footage. Then Thor appears, laughing madly, spinning his hammer with scenes of bloody carnage and municipal devastation in the background. Loki sees shattered windows, broken buildings, bodies crumpled on the cement.

Thor has always been a force of sheer destruction in battle, but so too he has always been judicious about who or what he chooses to massacre--the dark elves of Svartalfheim, the fire demons of Muspelheim, frost giants he didn't grow up calling brother. Loki's legs feel weak. He slides down beside Romanov on the couch, shocked and a bit enthralled by the slaughter, for all that he's angry Thor is not adhering to the plan. He's dizzied by the thought that this is Thor's idea of entertainment, now. And he wonders-- _when did Thor fill with such bloodlust... ?_

"You look like you're going to throw up," Stark remarks. "Every room has a puke bucket hidden around--"

"I am well," Loki interrupts curtly, a complete lie. He feels like he's falling. "I've seen enough." Without further delay he musters strength back to his gooey legs, and he stands and sweeps from the room.

*

Loki permits Stark a couple of days to recover from Thor's rough handling, until he's moving without signs of obvious pain.

"Make yourself a drink," Loki suggests after dinner that night.

Stark looks at him mistrustfully, but he goes to the bar and pours himself a glass of an amber liquor without argument or backtalk. Stark hardly needs to be told; he drinks scotch almost at the rate Loki's consuming wine.

Loki slowly trails him over to the bar, running his eyes up and down Stark's form. Stark's body looks to be on high alert, tense and nervous to be stalked across the room, and the rate of his breathing increases with Loki's proximity. He looks uneasy, in prey mode, as though he instinctively wants to bolt but intellectually knows better than to try.

"How are you healing?" Loki asks delicately. If Stark's body has been so ill-used by Thor that he remains injured days later, Loki can tolerate another one of his experienced, studious cocksuckings.

Stark knows exactly what he's asking and gives him an extremely defensive look. "Not bloody anymore. You planning to change that?"

Loki places a hand in the small of Stark's back, steering him into his bedchamber, the bedchamber Loki has claimed as his own. "Oh no, I will be quite gentle. Finish your drink."

Stark is dubious, and he staggers forward under the pressure on his back only reluctantly, but he also swallows his drink in a series of gulps, pausing to make comments he probably thinks witty. "Right, of course," Stark says, and takes a gulp. "Gentle. I'm sure you're like kittens and fluffy bunnies in the bedroom." Stark takes another swallow. "Sweetness and light. When you slip it in it's going to feel like sinking into a featherbed, like a slow-mo Lisa Frank explosion in my mind--"

Loki catches him by the waistband of his boxers, pulling him closer to murmur into his ear. "I dislike the sight of blood on my cock."

Stark shudders viscerally, perhaps from the soft breath in the shell of his ear, perhaps from the stated preference, and even after he seems to gain control over himself, he shivers again. "Oh, you _are_ a romantic," Stark says, and his propensity for sarcasm at least is unaffected by the nervous flutterings of his body.

Loki leans in and captures Stark's mouth with his own, and the empty tumbler falls soundlessly to the soft carpeting beneath their feet. Stark tastes of his expensive scotch and of mint underneath that, as though he's recently cleaned his teeth. A light scent clings to him, something used in an ablution, and like all humans he smells uniquely like himself. Stark's short goatee feels soft against his face, nothing at all like Thor's bristly growth of beard. When Loki pulls back, Stark's face hides nothing, utterly transpicuous, his fear and vulnerability written clearly across his features. 

"How did you ever succeed in Midgardian business with that face?"

Stark blinks. "What?"

Loki sweeps his fingertips over Stark's cheek and lips. "You conceal nothing. I thought a subtlety of expression was required. A certain inscrutability." 

"I succeeded in business because I'm a-- genius--" Stark stutters on his answer when Loki grabs his cock and squeezes. 

"You always have your heart on your sleeve," Loki continues. "A lovely figure of speech, by the way."

"You and Thor aren't like a... a business meeting," Stark manages at last. "Or, worst board of directors ever. That hurts, oh my god please--"

"These bruises are fading so beautifully," Loki says, teasing at the front of Stark's neck with the nails of his other hand. The words are not quite accurate, for the bruises aren't yet fading at all but rather remaining in full bloom.

Stark tries to yank away, gathering his limbs as though to fight, and Loki drops Stark's cock to clamp like a vise around his bicep. Upon failing in his effort to jerk back, Stark sneaks his fingers quickly up beneath Loki's on his neck, putting up a protective barrier while gingerly trying to avoid putting pressure on his own damaged flesh. "They're not the first, and with you and psycho Dolph Lundgren as my uninvited houseguests, I doubt they'll be the last. Please tell me you're not going to stab them with your fingers. Oh god, please tell me you're not into choking."

"I am not," Loki says agreeably, and he spins Stark around and presses him face-down into the bed. "Is that your foremost concern right now?" Being pushed into the flat, soft surface seems to stem the flow of his increasingly panicky babble, and Stark lies still when Loki pulls his boxers down and strokes his entrance with a finger. In the end, Stark never answers.

Loki has hundreds of years of experience, and he's grown skilled at making people melt to buttery arousal at his touch. He's visited Midgard far more than Thor over the decades, and the mortals are even easier than Asgardians to suffuse with eager passion. Loki expends no real effort; the touches that make Stark keen and tip his head back, the caresses against his hips that loosen the tight tension in his legs all come as second nature, a byproduct of Loki's singular purpose. He could terrify Stark again, he could make Stark suffer agonies if he chooses, and he may yet, but Loki wants actual couplings to be easy and painless, for he was being truthful about his aversion to the idea of blood or anything else on his cock. He wets Stark, gently and patiently stretches him and slips into him effortlessly within a minute. Shortly thereafter he has Stark moaning and pushing back against him, meeting his thrusts willingly and with increasingly demanding force. Stark's body nearly vibrates as he nears an orgasm, and Loki does not aid him, but neither does Loki deny him. He pulls Stark's hair hard and abruptly, just so he doesn't get too comfortable, but otherwise he's not rough. Stark lets go of any dignity he clung to, and he comes noisily with his legs spread wide, humping the bed helplessly while Loki's cock spears hard and fast into his needy, panting body.

When Loki pulls out, his cock looks as clean and unsullied as when it slid in. Stark stares at him afterwards with his eyes big and his lips parted.

*

Two mornings later Stark's chest is covered by tiny dots of dark hair. Loki runs a hand in a circle around Stark's heart-covering magnet device, feeling the soft buds of a forest of fine, regrowing hair shafts. "What is happening here?"

"Uh, hair?"

"I know what it is," Loki says irritably. "Why is it growing here? I thought you bare-chested."

"I haven't been able to get an appointment with my waxer," Stark says. "Funny, right?"

Loki looks Stark over critically and closely. The hair that begins in a trail down from his belly button to his groin, once carefully groomed, has grown longer and become slovenly-looking. "Rogers is not growing chest hair."

"I'm not Steve," Stark says, as if that is not self-evident and as though it makes him annoyed to have to say so. "The serum froze him hairless, I guess. The rest of us have to wax."

"Then wax it off. I dislike it." Loki pinches a single piece of the short stubble between two nails and yanks. Stark yelps and claps a hand to his chest protectively, though the hairs are so short and coming in so fine Loki is not certain whether he actually plucked the shaft out.

"I usually take an ibuprofen and a scotch before the ripping of follicles begins," Stark says. "What have you got against chest hair?"

Loki takes another long look at his chest and the offending growth. "Asgardians do not have body hair. I find it distasteful, most of the time. Alien. Obviously you do not care for it either."

Stark splutters a little. "I've never waxed myself. There's an art to it, you have to be licensed. I'd probably burn myself."

"So burn yourself," Loki says. "Or shave your chest."

"That makes for the worst stubble," Stark complains, then squints at him. "How come you haven't made Coulson shave?"

"I'll wax it for you, Tony," Romanov tells Stark, emerging from the bedroom.

"Thanks," Stark says. "I should have just done laser hair removal, but I had this nice standing sex date with the cosmetologist--"

Loki pinches another infintesimal stalk of hair between finger- and thumb-nails.

"Please don't," Stark says, quick and earnest so the two words come out almost as one, wincing in advance of the tug. 

Loki's about to go ahead and yank the hair out anyway, but something about Stark's plea or his pained expression makes Loki drop his hand. "Take care of it."

*

Loki mopes around the building in Thor's absence. He attempts once more to sketch jewel settings, but inspiration has abandoned him just as Thor has. He disinterestedly explores the many floors of the Avengers Tower, he listlessly goes through the books in the library, he drinks of the innumerable bottles of wine Stark keeps on the seventy-ninth floor, and he sleeps a lot. He even watches some Midgardian television, which is pointless garbage but sufficiently diverting that Loki understands why Midgardians use their screens to pass the unhappy time. Midgard is truly a dull and pathetic world.

Then Thor returns, using the Tesseract to transport directly into the Tower with a flash of electric blue light, right next to where Loki is sculpting a mold for his diadem while Stark watches. Stark crouches for Thor, not quite a proper kneel, then goes to one knee, a sour look suggesting he's barely holding himself in check.

"Hello brother," Thor says.

"You've been busy," Loki says coolly, placing the mold down and looking up from his work.

"It felt good to stretch my legs."

"And destroy fifty city blocks? And kill over ten thousand people?"

"Those, too," Thor says with a winning smile.

"I will take the Tesseract back now," Loki says severely.

"No," Thor refuses. "You have the wizard's necklace. I have the Tesseract. We each keep one. That way it's fair."

Loki wants the Tesseract back for safekeeping. Thor can barely keep track of his new hammer, but Thor will not thank him for pointing that fact out. "Thor, this was not the plan," Loki says, as unhappy as Thor is cheerful.

"Your plan is dull."

Loki feels at a loss. "It was _our_ plan."

"Consider this me livening things up," Thor says, and like an immature boy skipping out on an argument he's due to have, he uses the Tesseract again to transport out of the room.

*

But later that day Thor sends Banner like a herald to invite Loki to join him for sexual playtime, promising the added incentive of use of Rogers' mouth like a peace offering. Banner relays this information like the words induce nausea within him. Loki brings Romanov, Stark and Coulson to the seventy-seventh floor as requested, where he finds an intimate sort of carousing room with colored spotlights and a mirrored, slowly rotating sphere dangling from the ceiling. Loki has seen these Midgardian mirror spheres before, but never so brightly lit up, nor so colorful, nor so close he could almost reach over his head and touch the flashing winking squares. Midgard is a stupid realm, but the mortals do have their tricks.

When Loki has looked his fill and returns his attention to the room, Thor has already pulled Romanov into his lap and ripped her undergarments off.

Loki sheds his clothes with magic and sprawls on a chaise. He reclines and crooks his fingers at Rogers, and Rogers attempts to suck his prick against a musical backdrop of Romanov's gasps and small sounds. Coulson rubs the soles of his feet and sucks his toes, which pleases. Coulson has already figured out what he best likes.

Loki is interested to try Rogers out, for Thor's possessiveness of him is baffling, but he's bemused to discover Rogers is abysmal, raising a number of questions as to why Thor hoards his charms so jealously. Rogers holds the head of Loki's prick on his tongue without even closing his lips all the way. His teeth scrape, his tongue stays limp and his head moves like a harpooned fish wobbling on the spear. Every critique and instruction leads to a few seconds improvement in a single area, then a reversion to being all-around terrible. Loki wonders if his incompetence would be lessened if Rogers were sucking cock by choice.

"You're absolutely appalling," Loki tells him. "All teeth and no suction." Coulson teases at a new toe, making the nerves in Loki's feet quiver. "Thor, do you actually enjoy this?"

"I prefer his other end," Thor says without looking up. Rogers' face is stony.

"I could try that," Loki muses.

"Just this once, Steven is mine," Thor says selfishly, but Stark looks to Loki with such a wretched and pleading expression, Loki smiles. He could be amenable to compromise.

"Let's not give up on him quite so quickly," Loki says. "Stark, see if you can't refine his technique."

Stark glances from him to Rogers, a bit incredulous and obviously uncertain how he's meant to construe this instruction. Loki deliberately left the direction open-ended, just to see what Stark will do. Loki finds daily enjoyment simply in seeing how Stark reacts to this or that, and has done even during the frustrating days of Thor's absences.

"Okay buddy," Stark says, making up his mind swiftly, but his voice sounds uncharacteristically unsteady. He wets his lips, pursing them as he regards Rogers, assessing the situation as best a third party can. "Let me talk you through it. First get a good amount of saliva going. Hold his cock at the base. Three fingers... yeah, like that, at least while you're a beginner. Sorry, making assumptions." Stark rubs his hand over the lower half of his face, his eyes wide. "If you keep a few fingers around the shaft he can't do a surprise deep throat on you. Rule one is know who you're sucking off, and whether they're likely to be a dick and choke you for funsies."

Rogers huffs a slight laugh around Loki's prick.

"Now kind of... pull your lips out over your teeth a little." Stark demonstrates with his own mouth even though Rogers cannot see him. "Keep them like that, yep. Now close your lips around it. Firm but not too hard." Like magic, Rogers' lips tighten and seal deliciously around him. "Okay, now bob your head down to your hand and back. Up and down, just like that."

Though Rogers' movements remain awkward, the measure of his betterment from Stark's guidance is profound.

"Looks good," Stark encourages. "Now keep going up and down, but also start to suck."

Loki cannot suppress a sharp breath when Rogers follows this directive and the hot wetness around his length turns into hot, wet suction. Stark takes the noise as confirmation of improvement, advancing his lesson. "Nice. Great. Now move your tongue around the head. Swirl it around." Stark sounds slightly strained, and it doesn't escape Loki that Stark's prick has gone hard from talking his friend through this exercise. "Feel free to drool saliva into your hand, down the shaft. If you don't like the taste of his precum, just drool it out, or uh, spit it down discreetly. Try to push past your gag reflex, if you can, a little at a time. And... keep sucking." Stark watches Rogers another few seconds, then glances up at Loki questioningly.

"Better already," Loki purrs. "I take it you do not want me to choke him."

"Wow, it's like you know me," Stark says crossly.

Loki smiles at Stark. "What in all the realms makes you think I will let him leave his hand there?"

Stark's tone grows sharp, wholly inappropriate for his new status as a human pet. "If you want to fuck someone's face, you can fuck mine."

"Yes, I can, and so he needs the practice," Loki says, unwinding Rogers' fingers from around his prick. "Not you."

Stark scowls. He studies Rogers intently, as though to offer more pointers, but he says nothing.

"You're so protective of them," Loki remarks. "Is that because they customarily protect you, weak human that you are? Whoring is your specialty so now you return the favor? You and Romanov both."

Stark looks incredulous. "I can't believe this. You're calling me a manwhore? You're a _rapist_."

"No," Loki says, shaking his head. "I am a god."

Stark glowers at him. "And what's this 'weak human' 'can't protect myself' shit? I seem to recall knocking you flat on your ass."

The fact that Stark is standing over him does not stop Loki from staring Stark down. He's unimpressed, but he refrains from reprimanding Stark verbally. Rogers' hot mouth moves marginally more skillfully over his prick, but Loki can do more than a chiding with the emotional powder keg sitting in the room.

"Stop, Rogers," Loki says, and Rogers immediately ceases and jerks his head up, spitting onto the floor despite the fact Loki certainly hasn't come from his pathetic efforts. "Practice on Stark instead," Loki adds, holding Stark's eyes.

Rogers turns to Stark at once, reaching for him, and if he is poor at his only job, at least he is the very picture of obedience.

"No way," Stark says flatly. Though he doesn't step back, his hips twist and evade Rogers' seeking hands.

"No?" Loki asks, his voice silky, slow and dangerous.

"No," Stark repeats, firmer and more rebelliously this time.

"Your body likes this idea well enough," Loki observes, extending his arm to scrape his nails lightly along Stark's cock, hard and bobbing under his thin silk boxer shorts, apparently primed by the thought of his friend. Stark shudders at Loki's touch and pulls away. "Sit and let him suck you, or I will punish you in a way neither of you will like."

Stark stands there glaring down at him, his jaw set and the lines of his body tight and tense.

"It's alright, Tony," Rogers says quietly, and though Stark's legs look stiff as Pepper Potts on a good day, he allows Rogers to draw him over to the other chaise, moving in short, staggering steps. Rogers rearranges himself on his knees and pulls Stark's boxers down, not making any special show of it, simply finishing undressing him in one efficient move. Stark's cock is not only hard and bouncing with the movements of his body, it's already leaking in pearlescent-clear droplets. Stark flushes as his hardness is revealed, and when his eyes meet Rogers' a jolt seems to course through his shoulders. Rogers sets one of his large hands, heavy like Thor's, on Stark's hip, urging him to sit.

"Besides, you won't fuck his throat like I intend to," Loki points out. "Presumably."

"Please, Tony," Rogers mumbles.

Stark looks stricken as he gazes down at Rogers, but he holds his tongue, perhaps for the first time in his life, and he sits down and leans back, letting Rogers handle his length with exploratory fingers. Stark holds his whole body taut, ill at ease as Rogers holds Stark's hard prick at the base and sinks his mouth down. During his coerced dalliance with Potts, it was as though Stark successfully pretended none of them were present, or he simply did not care about fucking on display, but now he looks painfully dismayed, even abashed.

Stark runs a hand through his hair and keeps it there, tightly fisting a handful of his own hair, his other hand balled up as though he wants to punch someone, or as though he doesn't want to lay a hand on Rogers. He keeps his eyes closed and his face turned away from Loki, but he also spreads his legs out at the knees a little and struggles not to buck his hips up.

To see better, Loki withdraws his foot from Coulson's wet lips and talented fingers and rises, padding over to crouch beside Rogers, who appears to be applying every part of Stark's lesson as he sucks Stark's prick. Almost every part-- he's not keeping preventative fingers wrapped around the shaft, but rather is using only his mouth. A tacit act of trust. And most telling, Rogers is hard too, his cock large and outlined through his white briefs.

"I thought so," Loki says aloud as he moves on, inspecting the place Rogers' mouth meets Stark's wet, rigid flesh. Stark rocks his hips slowly and manageably, biting his lip with restrained need, and Loki can only conclude that either Rogers is excellent indeed when properly motivated, or far more likely: Stark simply wants it badly from Rogers, however sexually inexperienced, however inept his labors.

Loki strokes a hand over Rogers' shifting neck as his head moves up and down. Loki likes the warm, soft human skin sliding back and forth under his palm, rising and falling. "Ah, he loves this," Loki says softly to Rogers. "How long has he wanted you, I wonder?"

"Shut up," Stark croaks, slamming his clenched fist down on the cushion beneath him, and Loki laughs. Rogers ignores the exchange entirely, acknowledging neither Loki's naked proximity nor the fingers caressing at his neck.

"It's alright, Stark," Loki says. "Just pretend you're alone. Just you and Rogers. That's how you do it, right?"

Stark snarls in frustration, and Loki feels his work here is done. Loki glances back at his brother to see Thor still grinding up into Romanov at a steady pace, his teeth buried in her shoulder and the entire weight of his lustful concentration on her.

Loki straightens once more and goes to them. He places a hand on Romanov's shoulder and one on Thor's. "My brother is very good at that, I know," Loki says. "But may I cut in?"

"Keep Clint company," Thor suggests, slapping her ass and nearly overturning her as she dismounts him.

Romanov retreats a few steps before turning her back on them, perhaps less out of respect and more defensiveness, on her way to Barton.

Loki drapes himself sideways over his brother. Thor remains mostly dressed, with only his pants undone. Thor receives his close company with a fond hand in his hair and a long, firm kiss of his lips, his tongue seeking and possessive.

"I love the chaos you sow, brother," Thor says, and his blue eyes are ablaze. "Your harvest of discord."

So Thor has been paying attention after all. Their clash of methods and opinions is shifted aside, their hours-old disagreement feels forgiven, and Loki smirks at him. "And I love what you've done with your 'team.'"

Loki slides one leg farther across his brother's lap, spreading his thighs and beginning to impale himself on Thor's cock, huge and rock hard as only Thor can be, still wet from Romanov's cunt and Thor's own leaking fluid smeared copiously around. Thor grunts to convey his pleasure, and Loki throws his head back in pain as he bears down and pushes Thor's cock all the way inside.

Loki groans with the agony of forging ahead unprepared and with speed, and tears fill his eyes, but his body will not be damaged by a fast and forceful entry, unlike the humans around them, and he will recover from the pain quickly. Thor rocks his hips urgently then, unable or unwilling to stop himself or start slow.

Thor suddenly looks past him at their slaves, his hips slowing in their upthrusts, and Loki turns his head and laughs, for Banner has entered rolling a cart containing their noontime meal, Barton and Romanov have paused in their shared activity, Stark has opened his eyes, Potts is by Thor's chair and Coulson is sitting on the floor where Loki left him, and all of them save Rogers are staring at the picture he and Thor make. When he and Thor look their way, Romanov demurely lowers her gaze, and Banner also averts his eyes. Coulson takes longer, but finally he too looks away. Sensing a change in the atmosphere of the room, perhaps, Rogers at last stops sucking Stark's cock and looks around. Loki can tell by the way Rogers flexes his jaw that his muscles are feeling sore and ill-used by now.

"Did we instruct you to look?" Thor says to their audience.

"Oh, let them watch," Loki says carelessly, for the discomfort is already fading into luminous pleasure, and wiping his eyes he begins to fuck himself in earnest on his brother's cock. "You keep going, Rogers," he adds over his shoulder.

And then Loki fucks his brother to the sound of Stark's stifled moans.

*

"Thanks," Stark says almost numbly after they return to Loki's floor. "For not hurting Steve any more."

"Oh, I will expect all manner of recompense."

"Yeah," Stark says, his voice vague. "I'll do whatever. You know that."

Loki beckons him to follow into the bedroom, where he sits on the bed that used to be Stark's. "You loved when your prick was in his mouth. Tell me about that."

Stark scowls, then looks away, but his tone sharpens significantly. "What are you, my shrink?"

"That is what I want right now," Loki responds, stretching out on the bed and patting the space by his hip. "You said you would do 'whatever.' So, sit and tell me what that was like."

"Uh, it was horrible? Unlike you, I have morals."

"Go on."

Stark slumps on the bed beside him like he's giving up, his face dark, crushed, soaked in guilt. "And that was sexual assault under duress."

"Was it?"

"Yeah."

"Go on. Tell me everything, do not make me ask again."

Stark stares at the bedspread. "I assaulted my best friend while I tried to think of all the worst, grossest, least hot things I could think of so I could lose my stiffy. And nothing worked, because I liked it, and he sucked me off until I came in his mouth which I'm sure completely disgusted him."

"Hmm. That is not the impression I got," Loki says.

His comment galvanizes Stark, who looks up and glares at him. "Every 'boundary violation' box was checked. Is that what you want to hear? Cool story?"

"Yes," Loki says primly. "If that's what it was like. Learn to keep a respectful tongue in your mouth and perhaps it won't happen again."

"If my shitty dad couldn't instill that in me, you're sure not going to. Respect is earned, buddy."

Loki raises his eyebrows. "Did I not earn it by sparing your precious captain further pain?"

Shockingly, Stark's eyes fill with unshed tears. The sight should please him, satisfy him with vengeance fulfilled, an enemy broken, but Loki's stomach drops out, which is shocking in and of itself, and he feels moved only to pity, and taken aback.

"Stark--" he begins.

"No," Stark says in a trembling voice, shooting off the bed as though to flee the room. 

Loki catches his hand at the last second and tugs him back. Stark resists only for a moment, then lets himself be pulled, making his body a dead weight as soon as his feet leave the floor. Loki handles him easily, drawing Stark down, folding him into a close embrace, even squeezing him a little.

Stark tenses again to be pressed against him. "Don't, I don't want your sympathy, not from you--"

"Just take it," Loki says, petting his hair. "What choice do you have?"

Stark screws his eyes closed, probably so the tears don't spill over, and he lies still and stiff. Loki holds him, feeling unnerved by his own reaction to Stark's show of emotion.

When Stark has settled and relaxed and his breathing turned even, Loki nudges his waist. "Let's go work on my bracelet," he suggests.

*

Stark's eyes follow his every move with interest, noting which tools Loki reaches for to form the different shapes and curves in the wax. Again Loki senses Stark's keen hunger, an appetite to create, perhaps, or to work with his hands again. "You miss craftsmanship," Loki observes aloud.

"Is it that obvious?"

"Yes. Your hands are nearly twitching."

Stark sticks his hands behind his back, clasping them, but goes right on inspecting Loki's work. He's wavering on the simplicity of his design, adding elaborate lines and layers. He may nix the slave bracelet and choose the torc after all.

"You should let me sculpt a cast," Stark says at length. "I'm good with my hands."

"Are you," Loki says, miles more suggestively than he needs to, and he wonders at himself.

Stark's expression is difficult to read, but he must very much want to participate in the sculpting process, because his reaction is to reach over and grasp at Loki's cock through his pants.

Loki inhales sharply at his touch, surprised by the level of sexual aggression. He obligingly puts down his scalpel and divests himself of his clothing, and Stark doesn't miss a beat. Loki smiles when Stark tries to shove him against the wall, because he's far too heavy to be pushed anywhere by a Midgardian, but he draws a step back cooperatively. Stark leans a forearm against the front of his neck as if to deprive him of breath, all while jerking his prick in fast, stripping strokes with his other hand.

Afterwards they do not speak of it, but he lets Stark play with a chisel and a blob of wax.

*

The days flow on. Thor keeps Rogers mostly sequestered in his own bedroom, bringing him out only when Thor takes his leave of the Tower, which he does sometimes for weeks at a time. Rogers fares poorly under Thor's dominion and better when Thor is absent. Potts, Clint and Banner sleep in Thor's room as well, though the whole group of them sometimes come together for sexual play hour. Loki fucks all of them at different times save Coulson, Rogers and Potts. Mysteriously, Thor never fucks Potts either.

Stark begins spending nights on the floor of his old bedroom, now Loki's bedroom, and Loki discovers Stark sleeps fitfully and suffers from frequent nightmares. Stark's ill-favored dreams do not disrupt Loki's sleep, but Loki often wakes to find them happening in the morning as the sun rises. Loki lies in the bed and simply watches Stark thrash around, gasping and moaning, muttering and sometimes crying in his sleep. Sometimes Stark wakes up panting and sweating, and twice he wakes up screaming. Loki realizes Stark is, in his way, as damaged as Rogers.

Romanov and Coulson adjust to their new lives flawlessly. At first Stark seems depressed and grim from time to time, and acts desperate at others, and unlike Romanov and Coulson he's poor at hiding his emotions. After a few weeks, though, Stark appears to rally, and Loki feels quietly satisfied with the humans who have become de facto his, or at least more his than Thor's. Loki doesn't mentally shy away from the fact that he's grown fondest of the pets who dared to personally defy him.

They settle on allowing their mortals to dress in undergarments. Stark and Coulson are by far the least self-conscious. Stark either flaunts or forgets his mostly exposed body, Loki cannot be sure which, while Coulson maintains in his briefs precisely the same professional demeanor he projected when dressed in a business suit, wielding opinions, highly presumptuous orders and a giant gun prototype. Romanov seems more self-aware of her own near-nudity, of the positions she stands and moves and walks in, as if she considers her desirability one more strategic tool at her disposal. As if Romanov is merely waiting, biding her time.

"You are impossible to excite, aren't you," Loki says to Coulson one day when they're sitting on the couches opposite each other. "Are you always this unflappable?"

Coulson shrugs.

"Nothing outwardly perturbs you."

Coulson just looks at him.

"I wonder if I tortured you, if I could rouse something from you besides this attitude of polite and civil calm you have cultivated."

"I'm sure you could," Coulson says, almost reassuringly. "I'm just a guy. Of course I'd prefer you didn't."

"Tell me about yourself. I know little about you save that I stabbed you through the heart."

Coulson angles his body towards Loki, resting his forearms on his knees as if they're in conference, as though his life is an open book and he's prepared to answer any and all questions. "What do you want to know?"

"Whatever you care to tell," Loki says. Aesir or mortal, what a person chooses to share about themselves when given all leeway is usually revealing enough all on its own.

Coulson appears to consider the question. Loki waits.

"I like donuts," Coulson says finally.

Loki stares at him. "Really. That's what you want to share."

Coulson shrugs again. "I know some martial arts. I used to have a girlfriend. There's not that much to tell."

Coulson doggedly wrecks even Loki's best-tested theories. Loki leans forward, matching Coulson's posture. "What I truly want to know is how you survived me."

"I really don't know," Coulson says with an honest sort of equanimity, and Loki believes him.

"Entertain me then," Loki suggests, and he motions Stark to Coulson. _Now kiss_ , as Thor put it. 

Stark stops pacing, slumps down beside Coulson on the couch and kisses him without any particular passion, then shouts to the other room. "Nat! We could use a hetero assist out here."

Romanov comes out naked. She joins Coulson and Stark on the couch, and Coulson slides to his knees on the floor to kiss and tongue her quim while Stark kisses her mouth. Stark's hips soon start rolling in a bid for attention. Romanov smiles at Stark teasingly, not immediately responding to his implicit expression of need. Romanov quickly abandons the kissing to slide her pelvis down towards Coulson's mouth, her legs spreading wide, but eventually she reaches into Stark's lap and jerks him lazily. Loki quite likes seeing how they configure to pleasure each other when he only sits back and watches.

Then Thor throws open the door without knocking. "Brother."

Loki slides his feet off the couch, ready. "Yes?"

Thor leads Rogers, Potts and Barton in naked, each fastened on a tether as though they are hounds. "I am leaving," Thor announces.

Loki sits back, disappointed. "Again? To maim, slaughter and lay yet more waste to civilization?"

Thor smiles, dropping the leashes. "Something like that."

"We haven't even taken control of Earth yet," Loki complains. "Because you would rather go out and murder at random than work according to a perfectly designed plan."

"I am enjoying myself," Thor says. "Enjoying freedom as I never before dared."

"Yes, that is apparent. But we came to Midgard to rule it, not for you to smash every building and crush every fourth skull. We'll have no subjects left, assuming the people of Earth are willing to kneel to you at all after all the news footage of you laughing while you whirl around bashing heads in. We agreed to rule as benevolent gods."

"Oh, they will kneel," Thor says darkly.

Loki presses his fingers into his eyes. "Yes, I want that as well, but let us do it wisely. Work methodically. Mitigate risk. Do you not know what 'benevolent' means? At this rate we'll have uprisings all over the place and let's not even pretend it won't fall on me to put them down."

"When did you become so boring?" Thor demands.

"Probably around the time you turned into an utter lunatic."

Thor growls at him, pointing his hammer as if accusing Loki of a crime. "I cannot believe you are attempting to control me. To leash me! You of all people!"

"Only your worst impulses," Loki says, gazing at his brother, wondering how all this went so wrong.

"You have me in a whole new way, yet you still harbor the same old resentments," Thor says coldly. Thor paces back and forth, restless as the king of the lions caged, and with the coloring to match. "We are _one_. You have me, we are side by side. Why are you still dissatisfied?"

Loki feels keenly aware that Coulson, Stark and Romanov behind him have stopped their sex play and are watching and listening. Thor has forgotten to demand they kneel. Thor's three stand still and keep their eyes lowered as though they're a terrorized trio of dolls.

"Because we are not one," Loki answers softly. "At times, brother, I feel I hardly know you."

"I know not how that can be," Thor seethes. "For you, Loki, _you made me what I am_."

Thor storms out. Loki watches him disappear down the stairs, curses as bitterly as he knows how, then walks to Rogers, Potts, and Barton and angrily removes their leashes one by one, dashing the leather strips to the floor. "Sit," he mutters. Potts makes a beeline for Stark, who sweeps forward to them, still naked. Barton goes wearily to one of the chairs and Romanov goes to his side, and the hollow shell that used to be Captain America takes Loki literally and sits down right where he stands. Coulson stands next to the couch observing the scene.

Loki blinks down at Rogers. "Really, Rogers? Sit in a chair like a civilized creature."

Rogers obediently rises and goes to one of the chairs, though he looks as ill at ease sitting in it as he did in the middle of the floor. Something about him is different. He's used to Rogers' newly hunched-over posture reminding him of Banner's. What's changed, Loki realizes, is Rogers' eyes, which have gone dead and lightless. More of Thor's good works. Loki would happily have slain Steven Rogers only months heretofore, but seeing him as a pathetic broken thing feels neither pleasing nor satisfying.

"Do whatever you want, I care not," Loki tells the lot of them, and he opens the sliding door and walks out onto the balcony.

When he glances back through the glass door some time later, the mortals are huddled in a circle around the couch, half of them sitting on the cushions, half of them arrayed on the floor in front of it, all leaning in, talking. The camaraderie, the bonding, the friendship, the love is tangible even from a distance. Potts on the couch notices him peering in at them, and then Stark sees, and then a few more heads turn. Loki faces the landscape again and sits, looking out through the bars of the railing like he's behind the iron bars of a prison.

*

Thor will likely be gone for days, he knows. A wild hunger, a lust for blood lives in him now. Each time he leaves, the length of his absences grows in duration, or at least it feels that way. Loki sits outside a long time, wondering how everything with Thor slid to hell.

The sky starts to darken before Loki finally rises to go inside. The air has grown cooler and he feels marginally calmer. Hours have passed, but the others are still deep in conversation around the couch. Banner has joined them, the half-circle on the floor expanded to fit him in equally, shoulder to shoulder. Rogers' shell-shocked look has faded, and as always he appears a bit more like his old do-gooder self after spending some time away from Thor and in the company of Loki's own.

Silence descends instantly when Loki steps through the sliding door.

"Let us dine together tonight," Loki says. His eyes move over Rogers. "At a table."

"Okay," Banner says uncertainly, and he glances at the clock as he and Barton get up.

"Like the big happy family we are?" Stark drawls.

"Shut up, Stark," Loki tells him acidly. "And put some clothes on. All of you. I'm sick of looking at you."

Then they really all stare at him. "Just for now. Thor won't like it." Loki hates himself for this addendum. He suddenly feels aggravated under their startled, joined gazes, and he picks up his forgotten glass of wine from the table and turns to leave. "Do not do anything stupid," he warns as an afterthought, glancing back at them. "Or I'll simply kill you." Then he stalks into the bedroom.

As is his habit, Stark follows him in. Loki ignores him, going into the washroom to splash water on his face.

"Sorry," Stark says from the doorway, crossing his arms over his chest like he's hugging himself. 

"For your impudent tongue? I should cut it out," Loki says it without any particular strength, for he does not mean a word.

"It's just... Steve takes a little longer to come back to us, every time," Stark says quietly.

"It hardly surprises," Loki says. The cold water feels refreshing on his face, readying him to face whatever comes next. "Such fondness from Thor would wear anyone down."

"Yeah."

Loki meets Stark's eyes in the mirror. Stark gives him a long, wordless look, and Loki feels rising whispers of dread within.

"I know," Loki says before Stark can speak.

*

Dinner is an odd affair. Romanov sets the table in the kitchen that seats ten. Barton and Banner prepare a lavish meal, Loki supposes in appreciation of having their clothing restored. Potts is wearing pants that must be Romanov's and a crisp white buttondown shirt that can only be Stark's. Loki finds he likes not facing a sea of flesh on display everywhere he turns. A surprisingly good, civilized change.

They all sit around the table without speaking, passing dishes in silence. Loki sits at the head of the table and picks with his fingers at the loin of pork served in a creamy sauce reminiscent of plums. The rest of them eat with the standard Midgardian utensils--forks and knives. Loki marinates in the silence as they eat. He could leave them to their bonding again, but if the lot of them want to make the atmosphere awkward it's on them. He doesn't care.

Loki licks the plum glaze off his fingers. "When are we going to run out of food?" he asks Banner.

Banner glances at Stark before he answers. "Um, not for a while at least. There's a walk-in freezer in the prep space for the banquet halls--"

"Good."

"Right, I forgot that was there," Stark says.

Loki eats. They all eat, again in silence. After another few minutes, Loki cannot stand the subdued ambiance any longer. "This is all so dull," he says as he stands. Picking up his plate, he leaves the kitchen, abandoning them for his bedroom, where he sits on the bed and eats while he looks out the floor to ceiling windows. The view is nearly the same as from the sitting room, just a shade to the left.

Loki hears a brief tumult of yelling, though he cannot make out any words, and he cannot imagine what the lot of them have to be fighting about amongst themselves at such a time. Their close circle was not as warm and cozy as it looked, evidently. Loki thinks this not without a certain measure of smug satisfaction. 

A couple of minutes later, Stark joins him silently, closing the door, then sitting and leaning back against it.

Loki swallows what's in his mouth, barely tasting the food, and tears off another piece of meat. "What's going on?"

Stark shakes his head. "Nothing."

"I asked you a question," Loki says sharply. "What was the screaming about?"

Stark's lips part, though he pauses before answering. "Clint had some choice words for me," Stark admits.

"What words? What did he say?"

"He wanted to know when I became your little bitch, is what he led with," Stark says. "When I got up to come in here. And so on from there. "

Loki eyes him. "And why did you come in here?"

Stark only shrugs. "Do you want me to leave?"

"You're already here," Loki says, ripping off another piece of meat with his teeth. "Stay." 

*

He fucks Stark after he finishes eating, after which he and Stark venture back out into the mix of humans, all of them sitting in front of the television. He's left his jacket off, and his overtunic, and his boots, and though he keeps the illusion of being fully dressed up, in truth he's wearing no more than the mortals are, and less than some. Barton avoids Stark's eyes, Loki notices. Romanov discreetly changes the channel when they come in, away from the news which is all Thor all the time, and Potts and Barton part to make space for Loki on the couch. Rogers starts to slide off entirely to the floor, but Loki puts out a hand to stay him. Loki settles against him, leaning back into Rogers' chest at an angle, using him as a cushion. Rogers' body is large, solid and muscular, entirely mistakable for Thor's. Stark stations himself on the floor at their feet.

Loki feels so out-of-body, it takes him ten minutes to remember Midgardian television is all mind-numbing garbage. But he sits and watches and zones out, passing the time. Later Loki dismisses all their pets but Stark and Rogers, and the others remove themselves to the kitchen, where only their fading, indistinct voices can be heard.

"Rub my feet, Stark," he instructs, not because he particularly wants his feet stroked right now, but because of all the Avengers, he enjoys Stark's submission best, despite Coulson and Romanov giving the slowest and most sensual massages. Barton and Banner hate or resent him too much to do a halfway decent job. And even when Rogers slows down and tries his best, he's dispirited and terrible and might as well be a species lacking opposing thumbs. But Coulson and Romanov are skilled and put in effort, like they've not yet tired of life. Stark is somewhere in the middle, for he distracts too easily from his tasks. Yet he remains Loki's favorite. Loki drops the illusion that he wears his boots, exposing his shapely feet.

As Stark takes Loki's foot in hand Loki leans forward, pulling off of Rogers, and turns his head sideways. "Down," he says, and Rogers eases out and joins Stark at the foot of the low sofa. "We need to talk."

Loki admires the way his slender white foot looks held in Stark's mortal fingers, then raises his eyes and studies the pair of them for a long moment. Both chose to dress in the Midgardian garments known as jeans and T-shirts. Rogers has a plain white T-shirt, Stark a black shirt declaring his allegiance to AC/DC, whatever that is. But the resemblance ends with their clothes. Rogers is broad, strong, light of coloring, clean-shaven, and though his face has turned blank and inward over the months of captivity, he appears more lively than when Thor led him into Loki's chambers earlier in the day. Stark is thinner and pale, having lost his tan but kept his goatee, and he has an edgy, almost fervid aspect. Neither has chosen suicide despite being given unfettered access to all manner of knives and razors.

Both are at his mercy. But if he reveals his mind to them, he risks putting these pet mortals on more equal footing. Already he has undone some of Thor's dehumanization by restoring their clothes. He risks much more giving knowledge of himself, risking shared secrets. Care must be taken, and Loki well considers his next words before he speaks them.

"I will confess to you both-- I find myself increasingly unhappy," he tells his two slaves diffidently. "No, don't speak," he says when Stark opens his mouth. "Let me finish. What was planned has not come to pass, and Thor is increasingly difficult to live with, and more and more out of control. I fear what he might--"

Stark chokes on a laugh then, a short, bitter sound abruptly cut off. "Sorry," he says. "That's just..." Seeing Loki's cool expression, Stark quits the attempt to explain. "Yeah," Stark says, and falls silent with a shake of his head. Stark drops Loki's foot and takes the other in hand.

Loki pulls his leg away and shakes the first foot at him. "Terrible job, back to this one. Slow down. Apply yourself."

Stark obeys.

"Yes," Loki says, mentally going back to the conversation, and he finds himself absently fiddling with his hands and makes himself stop. These troubles with Thor are driving him to distraction. "The aphorism exists in Asgard as well. I was incautious in what I wished for."

"No--" Stark begins.

Rogers snorts derisively and incautiously and speaks at the same time as Stark, and Rogers' strident voice wins out. "Pretty stupid of you."

Loki bends at the waist, leaning forward to slap Stark. The noise resounds in the silence as Stark's chin jerks to the side and the foot massage stops abruptly. Rogers winces as Stark puts a hand to his face.

"Watch your tongue," Loki says curtly to Rogers. "I will not take criticism from the likes of you."

"One of these days one of you is going to break my neck," Stark says, tenderly twisting his head to the opposite side force was applied. "You misunderstood me. It's not that you made a bad call... although no one's arguing you didn't. It's that it's unbelievably messed up for you to tell Steve that Thor is 'increasingly difficult to live with.'"

Loki rolls his eyes. "Oh? Did he want an apology?"

Rogers looks appropriately chastened by the consequences of his insolence falling on Stark. He only stares at Loki wearily now, and his words are civil but short. "We're not interested in playing another one of your games."

"No game," Loki says, and he extends a hand to stroke the softness of Rogers' smooth, ageless cheek for a moment, then picks up his wineglass. "I know you have not been faring well in my brother's hands. What he's doing... I will not apologize, but know it is not what I had in mind. Something must be done, action must be taken, before the situation escalates further."

Rogers' blond eyebrows rise, and Stark looks as intrigued as Loki has ever seen. "Set us free, then," Stark suggests, pinging his collar with a finger. "We can fight him together."

"I do not wish to fight him," Loki says, sipping his wine. Stark's climate-controlled 'wine cellar,' a misnomer located on the seventy-ninth floor, contains the same sorts of vintages he recalls vividly from Latveria, and Loki has established his favorites among the labels.

Rogers looks at him with puzzlement clear on his face. "Then what's your play?"

"My 'play?' As I said, this is not a game. I will get back to you on my plan, perhaps," Loki says, placing his foot deliberately back into Stark's lap. "In the meantime, if you mention this conversation to Thor," he says, raising his eyes to Rogers, "I will kill you, Stark, and Pepper all."

"Offing me might be okay, but if you kill either him or Pepper, Thor will freak out on you," Stark points out, taking Loki's foot in his hands again and beginning to massage into the sole with his thumbs. "You just said you can't control him."

"No. I said I feel control of him is slipping away, not that I cannot control him yet," Loki says, leaning back against the cushioning again. He hasn't had need or cause to threaten either of them in weeks. "Not in this. If you speak of this discussion to him, I will say you are conspiring in a lie, and later I will kill all three of you and tell him you rebelled and I had no choice. He would believe me, because he always believes me," Loki finishes. "Not you."

The two humans look at him, and neither disputes his words.

"We won't say anything," Stark says.

Rogers nods.

"Good," Loki says.

"You want our help," Rogers states. It isn't a question. He and Stark exchange a look.

"Perhaps," Loki says thoughtfully.

*

"What is this? Why did you give them clothes?" Thor demands when he returns.

"They were cold," Loki says blandly. "Now that you are back, I wish to discuss how and when to take this world." He has had quite enough of Thor putting him off. They came to Earth to rule, not to hide out in the middle of nowhere like exiles, emerging only to commit mass annihilation of the populace only to hide again afterwards.

"No," Thor says, forcibly ripping the shirt off Rogers' chest, right down the center with both hands while Rogers flinches. Stark watches with open dismay.

Loki grinds his teeth. "'No' you will not discuss it or 'no' Rogers cannot wear a shirt?"

"Both."

"Tomorrow then? Tell me _when_."

"Fine," Thor says. "Tomorrow."

Stark mopes for a good hour after Thor leads his pets back to his chosen floor.

*

Loki heads to Thor's floor the next morning and runs into Thor just as he's coming out of the elevator.

"Where's your shadow," Thor says contemptuously. Thor holds a small bottle, tossing it back and forth between his palms too rapidly for Loki to get a good look at it.

Loki ignores this jibe. "Thor, we--"

"I need Anthony first. Go get him. Now." Without waiting for an answer of any kind, as though he simply expects to be obeyed, Thor turns and goes into his rooms, slamming the door.

"I'm not your messenger boy," Loki growls at the door, but then he sighs, and he goes down to his own floor and collects Stark. 

"We are summoned," is all he says, wryly, for Thor is treating him as no less a slave than the actual prisoners.

Loki goes back to Thor's floor of the Tower, Stark in tow this time. Still vexed, he doesn't bother knocking but simply flings opens the door.

There he sees Pepper Potts lying back on the sectional, wearing a blue dress with the hemline shoved up to her hips. _Did Thor give her a dress just to take it off her?_ Her legs are opened, Thor in the median between them, one hand on her knee. Thor pulls back and looks up as they enter, his beard wet with her juices. Loki stops dead in his tracks, because things somehow feel jarringly different than usual, and a second later he realizes that of his own accord, Stark's frozen too.

"Come assist me, Anthony," Thor calls to Stark. "I desire to bring your woman to her pleasure."

Thor is enamored of Potts for some reason Loki can't fathom. Though Thor often enjoys licking and sucking her, though he's fucked all the others as the whim takes him, Thor has yet to penetrate her or force her head down on his cock. As far as Loki has seen, anyway.

"She's not my woman," Stark says, sounding annoyed, but he approaches and drops to his knees beside Thor.

"You're right," Thor rumbles. "She's mine. As you are mine."

Stark looks only more acrimonious at this correction, and Loki clears his throat and raises his eyebrows.

Thor notices, and looks up with his old winning smile. "And yours, of course, brother. You know I take much delight in our shared spoils."

"Thor, I came up here in the first place to discuss our plans for conquest," Loki says with all the thin-stretched patience he has left in him. "Because you agreed we would do that today. Not make love to Potts."

"No one asked you," Thor says, turning away.

Rage flares through Loki like billowing fire, but he says nothing. Stark takes Potts' hand in his and squeezes once in reassurance. Loki silently comes and sits on Thor's other side.

"What do you suggest, Anthony?" Thor asks. "Pepper is unresponsive to my efforts."

"Is that bothering you, brother?" Loki asks with cruel amusement, unable to resist baiting him, to return his seething anger to Thor in kind. Thor casts a suddenly murderous glance at him, his teeth bared, his eyes full of such dark rage and such scant restraint Loki recoils.

Loki holds up a hand to Thor in a gesture of peace, but Stark seems unaware of the danger kneeling so close beside him. "She doesn't want to get off with you," Stark says bluntly. "That's really the problem here."

Thor's wrath whirls like a tornado away from Loki and redirects to Stark. Thor seizes him by the throat, barely restraining his strength as he strangles Stark while Stark claws ineffectually at his hand.

"Tony!" Potts cries, opening her eyes and starting to sit up. Her dress, already pulled down far enough to expose her modest breasts, drops and crumples farther down her waist. Thor pushes her back down with one hand even as he hurls Stark backwards with the other. Stark sprawls on the tasteful gray carpet, coughing and clutching his neck. Without meaning to, Loki imagines the carpet soaked red with Stark's blood.

"What I believe Stark is trying to say," Loki says, "is that Potts requires a soft touch."

Stark sits up, still getting his windpipe back in order, rubbing his throat and blinking hard, looking dazed.

"Allow me to join you both," Loki says smoothly, resenting the note of caution he hears in his own voice. He doesn't want Stark to end up a smear on the floor as Fury had when he refused to kneel. And while Loki can hold his own, he hardly wants to end up in a physical altercation with his brother again. Even with all his magic, his track record against Thor is disappointing, and Thor is markedly more violent than he used to be. "I daresay of the three of us, I have the most experience being a woman."

Thor nods acquiescence, and he gestures Stark to return to them. Stark crawls back cautiously on his knees and takes up a position beside Potts' head, the farthest he can get from Thor.

"Roll over," Loki tells her. "And move up."

Potts turns quickly onto her stomach as though she's grateful to hide her breasts and quim from them, inching a bit forward on the sectional. "Farther, move your head up and off," Loki instructs her. "Stark, support her head." Loki takes hold of the dress and wriggles it down her body towards Thor, who pulls it the rest of the way off. Then Loki rises and swings a leg over her, balancing lightly over her rear, putting most of his weight on his knees. "Massage her calves and feet, Thor. _Gently_. More gently than you have ever done in your life."

"Tell me if Thor goes too hard," he murmurs into her ear. "You can tell me by tapping my hip, if you like." Stark is watching him as he sits up, and Loki holds his gaze. Stark's eyes are open and unguarded, a little bitter, assessing his motives. 

Loki quirks an eyebrow at him but looks away first, for he's won, hasn't he? He has nothing special to prove, not to Anthony Stark.

Loki heats his palms together briefly before applying the finesse of his deft illusionist's hands to Potts' shoulders. He rubs carefully and attentively, glancing behind him now and then to monitor Thor's tenderness, and brooding all the while. Something must be done about Thor. The only question is what.

Loki tries to feast his eyes on the smooth curves of Potts' back and neck, human and imperfect, but lovely for all that. He tries to enjoy the lines of Stark's well-muscled shoulders, strong for a man of his years. The aging seducer hero inventor. Loki fastens his focus on the way Stark's small nipples rise and fall so evenly. He tries to cast the troubled unhappiness from his mind, and he fails miserably.

Loki eventually allows his hands to drift down along Potts's back, kneading softly in little swirls. Potts best likes a gentle touch, he guesses. Romanov gets wet for him whether he's rough or gentle or anything in between, but Potts is likely particular. Loki's interest isn't greatly stirred by her, though he can see in her a whole spectrum of possibilities for manipulating Stark, who is so worshipful, so painstakingly protective of her. But the idea feels strange, sad even, for Loki no longer feels entertained by the thought of tormenting Stark. As Thor said, Stark has become his shadow. His assistant and his ally, his confidant and an unexpected comfort, despite the tension between them.

Loki runs finger and thumb delicately down either side of Potts' spine. Loki leans down again to kiss the nape of her neck, but when he slowly sits back up, Stark's focus on him draws his gaze and their eyes meet.

Stark seems not at all cowed by the stare Loki levels at him. Stark straightens his head, studying Loki.

For just a few moments Loki allows his unspeakable feelings to enter and suffuse his face. He gazes at Stark with longing, imploring with his eyes, willing him to understand, to forgive, to return Loki's unvocalized affections in kind. Loki isn't certain what he yearns for. For Stark to be for him, perhaps, what Thor used to be. A strength at his side, the wind at his back (even if Loki sometimes saw fit to knock that strength down a peg, or decided to capture the wind in a bag just for fun). He wants for Stark to be more than Thor--for Stark to know him, truly know him, and remain by his side despite that knowing, and yet remain essentially... Stark.

Thor decidedly has not stayed himself.

But humans are ill at putting their primitive faculties to use, and Stark only looks confused at the emotion on Loki's face, whatever the ache inside him ends up looking like.

Loki swings his leg back over Potts, climbing off the sectional and settling back on the floor. "On three," Loki says to Thor, and without counting aloud, after three beats they turn her over onto her back. Stark intuitively cradles her head.

Loki crooks his fingers at Thor, silently directing him, and Thor easily tugs Potts down towards him so she resumes her original position on the sectional with her legs spread. Potts looks at Loki uneasily, then at Thor with even greater trepidation.

"Close your eyes. Or look at Stark," Loki urges her in a murmur, but Potts does not react, nor tear her eyes from Thor. "Look at Tony," Loki amends a second later, tasting Stark's first name for the first time.

The sound of his first name emerging from Loki's mouth makes Stark stare at him like he's grown a second head, but it also causes Potts to turn her face. With a single finger Stark strokes the fine hairs at her temple, then gives her a nauseatingly sweet open-mouthed kiss.

Loki watches them for a moment before gesturing to Thor to resume. Loki privately thinks his own oral skills superior to Thor's, for he's been on the receiving end of Thor's attentions in a female form on previous occasions, but no matter. He wants Thor satisfied in this obsession of his, and without Stark ending up cold and dead on the floor. Loki sighs internally, for he already recognizes the tiny, unassailable, undeniable threads in his thoughts demanding Stark stay alive, anxious to assure his safety, _secure his affections--_

Thor bends in between Potts' legs once more, his large hands curling possessively around her thighs, and Loki catches a glimpse of his pink lips before his mouth drops out of sight, pressed to Potts' cunt. Loki can smell her. Loki has spent more than his share of time in a female body, and the piquant, almost spicy scent suggests she is recently out of her cycle, and thus not presently fertile. Loki wonders if Thor will finally fuck her. Maybe if he does the act will purge Pepper Potts from his system. But probably not, Loki decides, for Steve Rogers is the other mortal with whom Thor seems preoccupied to the point of distraction, and that obsession shows no signs of flagging despite keeping Rogers bound in chains and using his body daily.

What disturbs him more than Thor's obsessions

_because the Nords know he has his own_

is that Loki has no real idea why Steve Rogers, or why Pepper Potts. Perhaps with Rogers the obsession is borne of competition over leadership, as Captain America had been the Avengers' leader. Perhaps it's because they're both warriors at heart, or simply because Thor likes Rogers best of his ex-comrades. Loki knows not. Thor has never been particularly clever, but he used to be a relatively uncomplicated man, with simple wants, simple appetites. But Thor has grown as convoluted as a valley of tanglethorn bushes, and as violent as a force of nature, destructive as acres of wildfire or a towering wall of water, and Loki doubts Thor even capable of examining his own desires now.

Potts becomes satisfyingly vocal as Thor progresses, and Loki breathes a silent sigh of relief when Potts' thighs begin to shake. Another ten minutes and he would have been forced to consider sinking a few sparks of magic into her to nudge her from the plateau and tip her over the edge into orgasm. Far better for everyone if she learns how to respond to Thor's attentions on her own.

Soon Potts' legs clench rigidly, and Loki watches her face dispassionately as she comes. When she relaxes and her legs slump a few moments later Thor pulls back, his lips and beard wet from her, his smile broad and pleased with himself.

Loki leans back on his hands. "Alright," he begins. "About the plan --"

"Do you think of nothing but winning a throne?" Thor complains. "Later, brother."

The interruption on top of yet another dismissal feels like a slap. "Come, Stark," Loki says coldly, and he rises and storms from the room.

"Oh, come on, Loki," Thor shouts after him, but Loki ignores him.

*

"Shut the door and tell me about Potts," Loki demands after he strides back into his bedroom, Stark at his heels.

Stark closes the door. "What about her?"

"She's timid," Loki says. "I cannot imagine you sticking with a woman timid in the bedchamber."

"Timid?" Stark sounds incredulous. "You have no goddamn idea what she's like."

"Was she wild when it was you and her alone?"

"That is none of your business," Stark says brusquely.

"I could go to her wearing your face and discover for myself," Loki says in a precise impersonation of Stark's own voice as he weaves a full illusion over himself, transforming into a simulacrum of Anthony Stark, complete with outfit that starts and stops with silk boxer shorts.

"Thor wouldn't let you," Stark says, but he sounds worried and unsure. "You look gorgeous though, gosh, I'd definitely fuck you."

Loki ignores this last. "Do you truly want to chance Thor's intervention?"

"No," Stark admits. "Yeah, she was amazing. Wild?" Stark shrugs. "Wild enough. Playboy image aside, I don't care that much about 'wild.' Your expression right now, that thing you do with your eyebrows, looks really weird on my face."

Loki stares hard at him, scrutinizing his expression for signs of lies or half-truths, but Stark reads as honest and blunt as ever to him. "Why did she end it?"

"Probably because I'm a pain in the ass," Stark says wisely.

Loki has to nod. "And why does she so fascinate Thor?"

Stark gazes at Loki, staring raptly into the perfect mirror of the identical face as he considers, cocking his head. "I don't know. When we found out he had the hots for an actual woman, from Earth, an astrophysicist that he met in New Mexico, we started to, uh, do a friendly one-up thing about how awesome our girlfriends were. Not to speak ill of the dead, but maybe he realized I was right all along and Pepper is by far the superior woman, or maybe Pepper--"

Stark's thoughts are quite exactly as Loki feared.

"--reminds him of his mortal beloved," Loki finishes the thought with him quietly, their words partially overlapping like so many notes of music.

"--reminds him of Jane Foster, yeah, the thought had crossed my mind."

Loki curses her death, untimely as it was. Perhaps Foster's death was the impetus of the current avalanche, the seed that rolled through the dirt until it became a ball, a ball that rolled and grew to the size of a boulder and turned Thor's heart stony. Loki hadn't meant to, not exactly, but when he'd seen her face in the group of S.H.I.E.L.D. scientists he'd made no effort to save her, either. Thor displayed no special remorse when he looked down at Foster's body afterwards. He'd shown more grief when Mjolnir refused to come to his hand, when with all his might he was unworthy to lift his hammer from where it lay. Loki cannot be sure where Thor's darkness began--were Loki's own words the springboard that took Thor so far in the direction of coldness, of brutality? The death of Jane Foster, or the loss of Mjolnir, or discovering they wanted each other in a more than merely brotherly way, and casting doubts aside without hesitation? Hard to contemplate it might be that last one, but it might. Loki cannot tease out with surety which factors in the cascade of events brought them to this point.

Stark's leaning farther and farther forward, inching nearer and nearer, violating Loki's personal space as though he wants to inspect his own pores or study the shape of his nose at close range. When Stark raises a finger to touch his transformed chin, Loki snaps.

"Do not-- prod me," Loki growls, but instead of slapping Stark or pushing him away, he seizes Stark's wrists and rolls over onto him, baring his teeth.

"I've been told so many times to fuck myself," Stark says, and Loki snorts aloud at the simplicity of mortal men. "And Nat armchair diagnosed me as a textbook narcissist... and a couple of actual psychiatrists have too--"

"You humans are all the same," Loki says with both irritation and a touch of amusement, of affection.

"Are we though? It sounds like Pepper at least is special," Stark says, and damn him but he always finds that spear of logic to pin you with your own words, like even though Loki is the one in control, Stark has him bolted down and is a step ahead in the conversation. A highly annoying trait in a Midgardian insect. Loki realizes he's growing hard from Stark's squirming around under him. "Confirming everything I already knew," Stark adds, shifting his hips.

"Shut up," Loki snarls as he claims Stark's mouth. With one hand he rips Stark's boxers in half down the center, clawing them open with his short, sharp nails.

Freeing his cock from the boxers by hand and then slicking himself by magic, he pushes Stark's legs back and sinks slowly inside him. Stark raises and then slams his head back on the floor in pain, his eyes clenched shut, but he is accustomed to being taken with little preamble by now, and Loki is not overly rough. Soon enough he's pushing back against Loki's thrusts as though he's chosen this. And, Loki supposes, he rather has.

Loki finds himself nearly panting, and he makes an effort to get his breathing under control in order to speak. "I have been coercing you for months," Loki says, "and now you want to fornicate because I made myself look like you in order to threaten someone you love?"

"You make me sound terrible," Stark says regretfully. "But you have such a fucking sexy voice when you say it."

"You are--" Loki begins, and then he realizes exactly what Stark is doing. "Oh. But here I am with you and not her."

Stark clenches his internal muscles around Loki, wrapping legs around his back before moving to meet Loki's thrusts more vigorously. "Can you really blame me for trying? You and I may have had our disagreements--well, just that one disagreement--but Pepper doesn't deserve mind games and rape by deception."

Loki continues pumping into him, every stroke into Stark's tight heat bringing him closer. Stark has won here, though Loki will not give him the satisfaction of saying as much.

"You are more wily than you look," Loki admits. "I wouldn't," he begins, but then the feeling of knowing what to say falls away, leaving him with a sense of losing his surety while flying over a chasm. "She does not interest me overmuch," he finishes at last, and he slips a hand under Stark's neck to lift his head and kiss him.

"Lately I haven't interested you either," Stark says half into his mouth.

Loki pauses mid-thrust. "What is that supposed to mean?"

"Just that you haven't fucked me in a while."

"Oh?" Has it been so long? Loki bends down, close over Stark's body to nip at his ear. "Have you missed it then?"

"Maybe a little," Stark admits, and Loki pulls back to stare at him hard, to search Stark's face to discover whether his sub-radar feelings are reciprocated. Loki still cannot tell; Stark looks up at him in confusion. "What? Why, do you only like it when I don't?"

"Nothing," Loki says, and he looks down and resumes thrusting. "No. I always like it," he confesses, because when he's close to the moment of his pleasure saying too much is terribly, destructively easy. With angled thrusts of his cock he brings Stark likewise to the edge, then takes Stark in hand. When he squeezes Stark's cock and scrapes Stark's ear artfully with his teeth, Stark cries out, arching up, and he comes between their bodies with Loki's name on his lips.

*

Days pass. Loki throws himself back into his work. He attempts to shape a torc at the forge, but though he's loathe to admit as much, his skill at direct welding is inadequate, and if he cannot form the torc and carve the runes to his satisfaction the endeavor is pointless. To hold the enchantments he intends, the craftsmanship must be perfect.

Loki melts the curve of gold down and casts a pendant instead, but he is out of practice and the final product comes out warped, and he has to melt the gold down and start the process yet again. Then his crucible unexpectedly slips to the floor and shatters. Nothing is working out, and the whole business is monstrously frustrating. Stark asks, with a degree of seriousness Loki cannot be certain of, whether he's considered abducting someone from Harry Winston.

When Loki seeks to remove the Stone from the Eye of Agamotto, not only will the Eye not open for him to uncover the bezel setting of the Time Stone, the Eye resists his efforts to cut into the asymmetrical lines suggestive of eyelids. The relic actually knocks him backwards with a wave of concussive force when he begins to heat it over the forge, and the gold will not melt even when he casts a shielding spell over himself and nestles the pendant directly into the molten fire. Loki's startled to be so thwarted. The Eye is not sentient in its attack, but the power imbued within is directing it towards self-defense just the same. He decides to research stronger spells before attempting to magically strip away its protective enchantments.

But things only deteriorate further with Thor, demoralizing him, making him avoid the project. Thor is absent from the Avengers' Tower more than he's there. When he finally comes back, he brings a couple of corpses and inexplicably leaves them on the ninety-first floor near Loki's workspace. When Loki asks him about them, Thor only laughs and walks away.

*

"Loki," Romanov comes in and says to him one morning as he and Stark are finishing breakfast.

Loki looks up, on guard. Romanov rarely speaks to him. "What is it?" 

Romanov looks him dead in the eye. "Years ago I was sterilized."

Loki blinks.

"But I think I'm pregnant," Romanov says calmly.

"Shit," Stark says, in a sort of awe.

Loki sets his hands flat on the kitchen table, spreading his fingers, taking the news in, then leans forward and puts his head in his hands.

"Thoughts?" Romanov asks.

"Con... grats?" Stark says, looking between Romanov and Loki uncertainly.

"Thor is a god of fertility," Loki says through his palms. Abruptly he rises and drops to his knees in front of Romanov, holding her by the hips and tilting the side of his head against her belly, which now that he's paying attention does look slightly more rounded than before. He hardly needs to listen to know, but with his ear to her skin, Loki hears two heartbeats.

"Do you want this?" he asks, pulling back but leaving his hands on her hips.

Romanov's face pulls into a grimace, the corners of her mouth quivering in a way that reveals a glimpse into the world of inner emotion Romanov always keeps on lockdown. "My feelings are complicated," she says as flatly as ever.

Loki resists the urge to scream as he looks up at her. "Think on them. I will... try to help you with whatever you decide. But you should choose soon, before Thor notices."

Romanov seems to come to a decision. "No, I don't need to think about it. I might have wanted someone else's child," Romanov says. "But not his."

"You might die either way," Loki tells her. "Whether we try to cast it out or you carry to term."

Romanov takes this news stoically too. "Which gives me better odds?"

Loki stands up slowly. "Getting rid of it."

"Then yes. I want your help."

Loki nods. "I will brew you a tea," he says, "and prepare a spell for evacuation of your womb in case the herbs fail." Rising, he goes into one of the large viewing rooms. The vista of water and mountains holds no interest for him, and he lies down on the couch to put a pillow over his face.

A minute later he hears footsteps following him in. "Can you even abort a god's, uh, spawn?" Stark asks quietly.

"I don't know," Loki says, after removing the pillow long enough to make sure Romanov hasn't come in too. "I'll try." He meets Stark's eyes tiredly, then shifts his gaze away. "I would not force someone into birth against their will."

Stark stares at him and Loki puts the pillow back where it was. "Okay, you have moral standards that make no fucking sense at all. If I may--"

"No." Loki feels angry color enter his cheeks. He has no wish to discuss his own pregnancies. "Do not ask, Stark."

"Oookay," Stark drawls. "Are you completely sure it's Thor's? And not yours, or Coulson's, or mine?"

"Of course it's Thor's." Loki throws the pillow sideways and rises, going to the windows, feeling more trapped than he ever thought he would on bloody Midgard. He walks the length of the windows. Stark strolls after him.

"We haven't had sex in like a week," Stark says tentatively, "if you want to take the edge off."

"Fucking you is not fun anymore."

"Wow, ouch," Stark says, and Loki cannot discern whether this offended reaction is affected or bona fide.

"I did not mean--" Loki begins, momentarily softening and turning towards Stark, but his mood flips again and irately he stops himself. He has no need to explain himself or apologize to the likes of Anthony Stark, and rage courses through him for his own weakness, an inexplicable attachment to a pathetic Midgardian, he's hardly better than Thor. "None of this is fun." A single urn sits perched on a stand there in the far corner of the room, and Loki picks the vessel up and hurls it at the wall, where the pottery strikes and shatters.

Stark watches, wide-eyed. "That was actually from the Han Dynasty," Stark comments, looking down in the direction of the pale gray shards as if they mean something. "So I hope breaking things at least is still fun."

" _This is not what I wanted_." Loki finds himself breathing hard, and his voice rises as he goes on. "I wanted you all dead at my feet. I went along with this idiocy because I wanted Thor pleased. He promised it would be fun, diverting, to keep you alive. It stopped being either when Rogers broke and there are dead bodies by my window seat and now Romanov is pregnant and _you are all more trouble than you're worth!_ "

"It seemed like you were having fun before," Stark says. "At first."

He takes two strides forward and grabs Stark by the neck. Stark winces, and Loki jerks him close. " _I never wanted to be your protector!_ " Loki shouts. "I never wanted to work with you. Now we are going to have to do something."

"Okay," Stark says calmly. "I agree. What are we doing?"

"Go get Coulson," Loki says, pushing him away. "I want him to weigh in."

"Okay," Stark agrees, and he goes.

Loki lies back down on the couch and waits, but Stark doesn't come back. After twenty minutes, Loki starts to feel uneasy.

"Romanov," he yells, but she's probably too far away to hear him. Thor was right, the Tower is far too annoyingly large to use as a base of operations. Loki plants his feet on the floor, feeling more disquieted than ever. When he roams through the floor, he finds Romanov asleep in the bedroom she and Coulson share. Loki leaves without waking her. Coulson is sitting in the television room watching a news channel with a sandwich and a glass of milk in front of him. He looks up when Loki comes in.

"Where's Stark?"

"I don't know," Coulson says, giving him a questioning look.

"Where have you been?" Loki asks sharply.

Coulson raises his eyebrows, shifting in his seat. "I was in the kitchen. I just came out. Want me to go find Tony?"

"No, I will," Loki says.

When he checks the kitchen and Banner, who should be preparing lunch, is also missing, Loki knows straightaway where they both are. He takes the elevator up to Thor's floor.

Loki knows the situation has gone south the moment he smells the blood, and worse, the viscera, the wretched stink of human intestinal contents, even before he steps foot into Thor's room.

When he throws open the door, the sight at his feet is ghastly. Clint Barton, or what was Barton, has been reduced to different colors of pulp and bloody smears, the carpet saturated with his lifeblood, ripped musculature strewn here and there with broken bones, pink entrails splashed on the walls. Thor took his pet utterly apart. Loki recognizes which mortal it was only by the pieces of one of Barton's pairs of undergarments, by a miscellaneous hank of Barton's light brown hair attached to a scrap of scalp, and clinging to that a piece of skull and a hunk of brains. He sees an eyeball. Thor's hammer lays by, red from haft to head. Loki takes the scene in within a second.

"Thor," he whispers, and he looks up.

Thor has Banner, Stark and Rogers tied up and suspended in a row. Pepper is sprawled on the floor, her head lolling and her shoulders shaking, her face turned away from them. With Thor's body in the way Loki can't be certain what Thor's doing to Banner, but Banner's screaming into his gag in thin, pained cries, as though he's nearly screamed himself hoarse, and his eyes are full of tears. Even from the back, Loki can tell Thor is drenched in human blood and squish, bathed in everything that belongs inside a human, as though he rolled around in the gunge.

"Thor, dear, don't kill the help," Loki says.

Thor whirls and smiles at him, and from the front the sight is even more appalling. Thor's mouth is the bloodiest place of all. "Going soft on me, _brother_?"

Loki looks at him reproachfully, but they're far beyond admonishments now.

Stark says something to Loki urgently into his gag, but Loki is forced to pick his way through the mess without slipping into the mucky human remains of Barton, and care requires attention to where he places his feet. No one ever talks about how slippery gore can be. Reaching a clean zone, Loki looks up, ignoring Stark to focus on his brother.

"You wanted to kill them all," Thor reminds him, prowling closer, every inch of his broad chest stained with Barton's drying blood, smeared and discolored by the splatter of his butchery. Normally Loki appreciates Thor's naked body, but now the sight of him only registers faint alarms. Thor paces as though he may fly off the handle and go ballistic at any moment, and Loki watches him warily. "'We need them not,' you said."

"That was then," Loki says, taking a quick glance at Banner's abdomen, which has a series of deep horizontal slices going across the flesh. Torturous, but not fatal looking. "This is now. They have proven satisfying to possess." A bit of flattery shall not be amiss. "I think now that you were right to want to keep them around."

"Bah." Thor turns his back on his brother.

"And helpful." Loki meets Stark's eyes for a moment, not letting the panic and grief he sees there break his concentration. "Banner is a fine cook, we're not like to find better, Stark we will want for weap--"

"A cook!?" Thor lets out a maniacal laugh. "Do you hear yourself? They have grown to _matter_ to you, brother. You were right. We should have killed them all." He approaches Loki, slapping a hand on his arm and squeezing too hard. "They can be replaced."

"Can they?" Loki asks, allowing that small smidgen of his irritation to come through, and he yanks his arm away. His sleeve retains half a grotesque handprint. "You killed most everyone else." It's an exaggeration, but an effective one. Thor has killed thousands upon thousands, laid waste to whole cities, made orphans and widows and widowers, made mothers and fathers childless, made refugees of all survivors.

"Fine," Thor grumbles, and he shakes his head as though he's trying to agitate thoughts out of it. Belligerently he slams his hammer down on the table in front of Rogers, where it splinters the handsomely finished wood.

"I tire of them, get them out of my sight," Thor commands. "Leave Steven here."

Loki considers and decides not to speak up for Steve Rogers. Rogers hangs in his chains like a man dead, but his chest continues to rise and fall, as constant and unending as the Earth-sun's cycle. Even with the effects of his serum partly muted, Captain America is more likely to survive Thor's rough treatment than the regular humans, or Banner with the far more complete suppression of his altered state, and the truth of the matter is that Loki dares not try and take away all Thor's ragdoll toys.

"Potts, kindly help Stark down?" Loki makes it a question, uncertain whether she can actually get up, but she drags herself to her feet, her face tearstained and dazed and angry and grateful all at once as she goes to unhook Stark's chains. The rising marks of bruising across her cheek and eye can say nothing but that Thor cuffed her.

Loki's glad to see Banner can still stand and so presumably walk. He looks at Loki with such broken gratitude it's sickening.

They leave Thor and Rogers alone. Banner shuffles first to the elevator with Stark's arm under his shoulders, Potts behind. Though his cuts did not appear life-threatening, Banner clutches his injured abdomen with his other arm as though he's holding his guts in. 

Loki touches Potts' arm, unintentionally making her flinch. Loki softens his gaze on her. "He struck you? For interfering?"

Potts nods.

Stark lets go of Banner once they're on the elevator, and he pounds the burnished metal wall with his fist. 

"Calm yourself," Loki says. "Or at least wait until we're off this floor."

"Jesus fucking Christ," Stark snarls.

"Do not speak of Barton to Romanov," Loki tells them emotionlessly.

"She's going to know something's up," Stark says. Stark is paler than Banner who's genuinely lost blood. "We can't just not tell her."

"Only tell her Thor took you and tortured you three," Loki says. The elevator begins to move.

"She's going to know," Banner says. "She's going to ask about Clint and Steve. She's going to find out sooner or later."

"Potts, see to Bannon's cuts and ice your face," Loki says. When she nods again, Loki drops to one knee to inspect Banner's lacerations. After taking stock and confirming what he already believed, he glances up at Banner, then rises and straightens. "They appear painful but not life-threatening?"

"Yeah, I think I can put a couple of stitches in them myself," Banner answers like he's pulling himself together.

Stark stews in silence, every line of his body radiating anger. When they reach Loki's floor, Loki sweeps past the three of them and walks into the bedroom. Stark follows him in and slams the bedroom door shut behind them. Startled, Loki whirls around.

"Why did you leave Steve in there?" Stark shouts at him.

"Because I do not want Thor to snap and kill the rest of you. He requires an outlet, evidently."

"You have to go get Steve!" Stark yells. "You have to do something!"

Loki refrains from seizing Stark as roughly as his brother would have--as Loki himself might have only weeks prior. He only grabs Stark by the shoulders, and takes care not to grip his frail human frame too hard before he shoves Stark a step back. "Stop shouting at me!"

"Thor's insane," Stark says in a little hiccup, slightly more evenly, as though seeing Loki starting to lose his temper relaxes him.

"Do you think I don't realize that?" Loki shouts at him. "Do you think this is what I wanted?!"

"I have no idea what you wanted," Stark says, suddenly calm. "But Loki. Seriously. He's going to kill Steve. You have to stop him. Please."

"Rogers is hard to kill, even now." Loki stalks to the windows, then turns to glare at Stark from across the room. "I believe he will survive."

"I'm pretty sure he was going to kill us, all of us." Stark drifts after him slowly, almost absently, stopping beside Loki and giving him a searching look. "Do you care about that?"

"Yes, I care." And the truth is, he does.

"Then we have to do something," Stark says. "There's only one thing that's going to stop Thor."

"I have no intention of killing my brother," Loki hisses. "Do not suggest it."

"I'm suggesting you set the six of us free," Stark says. "So we can defeat him, like heroes do. Let the Hulk give him the kind of slingshot back-and-forth he served up to you? We'll kill him so you don't have to."

Loki shakes his head, pressing his fingers into his forehead. "No one is killing Thor."

"Okay, well, we'll subdue him instead. Or tell me your ideas," Stark says. "Your ideas to keep us from dying. Because Loki... I don't know if I think you're a good guy, or anything, but I know you don't want us dead. And that's exactly what's going to happen if you do nothing. You saw Clint." Stark's voice falters on the name. "Thor needs to die."

" _I said no_. Do not presume to dictate orders to me."

But when Stark drops his chin and puts his hands over his face, Loki regrets his cutting tones.

"Stark," Loki says softly, taking him by the wrists and easing them down. Loki sees the wet lines trailing down Stark's face beneath, the red cast to his grief-stricken eyes, the beginning of puffiness arriving with the tears. Stark's lips are pressed together, and the tiny deviations of the thin lines of his mouth are the quivers of an effort to maintain emotional control.

Empathy steals its furtive way into Loki's chest, and he steps farther into Stark's orbit. He hasn't laid a hand on Stark in some days, and the solidness of Stark's shoulders under his hands feels deeply satisfying, reassuring, and tempting as well, though at the moment he wishes only to impart comfort. He slides his arms around Stark, pulling him in. Stark's face tumbles into his shoulder, and for a second Stark shakes against him with the suppression of his sobs.

"Clint, Jesus Christ," Stark whispers when he regains control of himself, shaking his head against the place where Loki's neck becomes shoulder, and he sniffles once.

Loki pulls far enough back to look him in the eye. He grabs a handful of Stark's hair and holds his head taut when Stark resists him drawing away, forcing Stark to listen and pay attention. "But will killing Thor bring Barton back? Will killing Thor take away the violations levied upon Captain Rogers? Will his death help Romanov, or comfort Potts?"

Stark gazes at him blankly. "Nothing's going to bring Clint back, or un-rape or de-terrorize everyone."

Loki lets go of his hair. "That is where you are wrong."

Stark's face crumples a little, like he might be on the verge of fresh tears, like he's heard more than he can stand, and his voice trembles. "Loki... are you insane too? That's not how this works."

"I will acknowledge you are not wrong about Thor," Loki says quietly. "Something must be done. I want my brother back." Loki releases Stark but keeps hold of his hand. "Let's get Coulson and talk."


	2. Doom

Loki takes Stark and Coulson down in the elevator to one of the Tower's sub-basements, to a room outfitted like a conference chamber with a table and chairs. Coulson behaves as professionally as ever. Two short lines have appeared in his forehead between his eyebrows, but otherwise his grief is closed rather than scrawled all over his face like Stark's. Whatever he feels about the death of Barton, Coulson primarily keeps it off his exterior.

"Sit," Loki says to them both. Stark hooks his ankle around a chair leg and yanks it out, then slumps into the seat. Coulson sits with dignity and rests his folded hands on the table.

"We need to turn the clock back," Loki tells them succinctly. "That is my plan."

Stark blinks, silent for once. Stark has calmed, but tears periodically continue to run down his cheeks.

Coulson arches an eyebrow. "How do you propose we accomplish that?" 

"We have four options as I see it, and one clear choice," Loki says, twirling his fingers together. "I do not want to stay and wallow in this mess nor see it to its conclusion. I want to keep all this from happening in the first place. We need to either reset time to a point from which we can alter the course of events, or travel back through time to change the past and this future."

Both humans stare at him. 

"That's an ambitious idea," Coulson ventures. "More... extreme than I expected." Coulson glances at Stark, then back to Loki. "Is time travel... in your skill set?"

"Time travel is outside my capabilities," Loki admits. "So yes, mildly ambitious. Coulson, listen to my ideas and tell me your thoughts. Any useful or relevant information you might have would be appreciated."

Coulson nods intently. 

"Our first choice," Loki begins. "We can journey to the Dark Dimension and seek Dormammu--"

Coulson's head tips back as though he's been slapped, going slightly popeyed, though his bland tone never wavers. "You have got to be kidding."

"No. But that is certainly the riskiest option and I would not prefer it. However, Dormammu possesses the power to reverse time on a grand scale."

"Can I forbid you to choose that one?" Coulson deadpans.

"No," Loki says. "But you are in luck, because I do not think I have anything the Dread One wants, and though I am not a helpless, frightened mortal like you lot, if I cannot bargain with him, then going anywhere near his domain would be folly." Loki ticks that option off on his fingers. "Our second choice is to free Sorcerer Strange--"

Coulson looks surprised. "He's still alive?"

"Stop interrupting me," Loki says, annoyed. "Yes, he's still alive. I have him asleep and imprisoned. With his relic Strange has the power to intervene in and alter the flow of time. However, I do not think he would be capable of reversing time and events to the scale and magnitude I require."

Coulson thinks about that, and Loki can almost see the wheels turning despite Coulson's constant and impenetrable poker face. "We should talk to Stephen Strange before we do anything else," Coulson says.

"No," Loki says. "Our third choice is to wake Reed Richards from his coma and demand his help."

"I like that idea too," Coulson says immediately.

"You would. I am regretting even asking your opinion."

Coulson smiles faintly.

"You can just... wake people up from comas?" Stark asks.

Loki ignores him. "And our final choice is to approach Victor von Doom."

"Oh no," Coulson says.

"We are on good terms, and von Doom possesses the technology to send me back in time," Loki continues.

"Right," Coulson says. "The time machine. S.H.I.E.L.D. knew of it. But use of that sort of, outlandish, technology--" Coulson fumbles over his words as if searching for the right ones, "--is a hornets' nest. You could just as easily create a divergent timeline as successfully change this one. S.H.I.E.L.D.'s very, and I must emphasize, very primitive research into that field suggests you could screw up everything in the universe."

"I will bring Strange along to prevent a time split," Loki says, steepling his fingers together. "He should be able to manage that. A wizard whose specialty is time magic, wielding the Eye. You agree, yes?"

"Yes," Coulson affirms. "Probably. We should wake him up and make sure."

"What exactly do you plan to do once you're back in time?" Stark asks.

"Have a word with myself."

Stark rubs his eyes. "You're going to go back in time and tell younger Loki 'hey bro, don't turn Thor evil'? That's your brilliant plan?"

"Something like that," Loki says.

"But you're such an asshole, how will you make younger you listen to yourself?"

"That is enough." Loki taps a censorious finger against Stark's lips. "You dare too much," he warns, but he does nothing more forceful, for Stark is clearly afflicted by his bereavement. "If I can... talk sense to myself, Mjolnir will remain Thor's, Jane Foster will live and--" _Thor shall never map the planes of my body with his hands, never know my intimate touch, though I shall never forget his--_ "--and Thor should turn out... different. With Doom at hand I can make sure of it."

Coulson gives him a scrutinizing look. "Okay... well. You don't have anything Dormammu wants. Dr. Strange will probably go along with this to fix what-- to fix everything that's gone wrong. Same with Reed Richards, though he might have his own ideas. Do you have something to offer Doctor Doom?"

"I have more than one something to offer Victor." 

"You're on a first-name basis with him?"

"You could say that." Loki smirks, and his expression, perhaps, keeps Coulson from probing further. Loki spreads his hands. "Does either of you have a better idea to fully undo what Thor and I have done?"

"No," Stark says readily. "It's not what I expected, but I'm on board, captain."

Stark realizes what he's accidentally said a second later: _Captain._ Even in jest, Stark seems uncomfortable with the slip, and his eyes meet Loki's before he looks away.

Coulson sits back in his chair. He presses his fingertips to his mouth, his gaze moving around the ceiling deep in thought, and Loki waits. At last Coulson looks at at him and shakes his head.

Loki considers, then turns back to Stark. "How quickly can you reconstruct one of your metal suits?"

Stark looks surprised for a second before he flashes a genuine, gratified smile, though his eyes are still shining with tears. "Uh, I won't need to build one."

Loki raises his eyebrows, but he's not put out at all. "Keeping secrets, Stark?"

Stark shrugs. "One or two."

"Show me," Loki says. "Coulson, go back upstairs, join the others."

Coulson nods.

As Coulson goes to the elevator, Stark leads Loki in the opposite direction to a different area of the sub-basement, down a wide corridor heading towards a set of sliding industrial metal doors, securely locked. Loki has noticed these doors and even tugged at the handles but has not yet expended the energy bothering to break into the room beyond. The doors are heavily fortified, probably beyond what Loki or even Thor could simply kick in.

"I see one serious problem with this plan," Stark says as they walk. "If we're going to Latveria... everyone gets left here alone with Thor."

"An unfortunate necessity."

Stark chews his lip a little, uncertainty and agita in his eyes when he looks up. "What if the plan doesn't work out and we come back and everyone's dead?"

"Doom has a time machine," Loki says. "We make the plan work out."

"What if Doctor Dictator refuses to let us use it?"

Loki shakes his head and speaks with an authoritativeness he does not entirely feel. He is confident, but nowhere near certain. "He will not refuse me."

Stark strolls away from him and approaches the side of the corridor. He taps two fingers against a particular place on the wall, causing a small, seamlessly invisible door to slide up and reveal a hidden panel. "Don't get any ideas, I was briefed on what you did to that dude in Germany," Stark says before he bends forward slightly and lets an ocular reader in the panel scan his eye.

With the clanging noise of sliding steel, a mechanism unlocks the doors from the inside, and Stark pulls on the handle, putting his whole weight into the motion. Loki stands back, and as Stark drags opens the door, Loki sees a large array of Iron Man armors.

Stark watches him for a reaction.

"Are they all operational?" Loki asks.

"Yep. But only the two in the back on the left can be put on manually, without a mechanical assist."

"Then I will take one of those," Loki says. "Let me bring one out." He goes inside, then hesitates beside the suit. "Can I just pick it up?"

Stark nods, and Loki lifts up one of the models Stark indicated, carrying it outside the door. The suit weighs less than Loki expected. "I will conceal this elsewhere and come back for it," Loki tells him.

"Okay," Stark says, as though he does not understand the delay but accepts Loki's decision nonetheless. "What's next?"

"Do you have a vehicle?" Loki asks. "A rugged one that can traverse the terrain outside. One that can carry you and me, Strange and your suit."

"Military grade Humvee," Stark says. "Or a modified JLTV. The LATV's in Malibu, and the Bentayga probably can't handle driving through a forest."

"None of that jumble means anything to me," Loki says. "Just pick one, it will save me some effort."

"Sure. How far will we need to go?"

"Not far." Loki reaches out and sets his hand on the back of Stark's neck, fingering the tiny hairs on Stark's nape. Stark stands still for his touch, just looking up at him, his eyes large and dark and expectant, waiting and watchful.

"Stark." Loki suddenly becomes self-conscious, dropping his hand from Stark's neck and his gaze both. Why has he allowed this insignificant human to matter to him? Has Thor's deterioration left him so bereft he craves the approval of a Midgardian? Pathetic. Yet he says the words all the same. "I want you to know that I regret much of what's happened, and my role in it. I regret the part I have played in this... mess."

Stark slowly nods.

Loki could continue, apply seductive fancies and sweet-sounding untruths with his infamous silver tongue until he elicits what he wants, but Loki will not permit himself to press for absolution from a worthless Midgardian mortal. After a few seconds, when it becomes apparent Stark has not been compelled to a response and will not say more unless prompted further, Loki turns and picks up the suit of armor, letting the subject lie.

*

That night Loki enters Thor's room while Thor is sleeping soundly, all awash in a daze of the wine Loki went to the minor trouble of drugging with an Asgardian sleeping draught. Thor lies sprawled in the bed snoring, more peaceful than he ever looks awake these days.

Loki silently moves to the place Steve Rogers is chained to the wall. Rogers' face is mottled with purple, the contusions visible even in the dim light from the corridor.

"Rogers," Loki says quietly, kneeling beside him. 

Rogers tilts his head back enough for Loki to see the awareness in his eyes. "He has pummeled you, hasn't he," Loki says, taking Rogers' jaw in an unbruised spot and gently angling his face towards the faint light source. Rogers allows him to touch without resistance, as though fighting spirit is a resource Thor has used up, leaving him so much limp and tractable clay in Loki's hand.

"I am taking Stark to Latveria to seek the aid of Victor von Doom," Loki tells him softly, dropping his hand.

"Your plans suck," Rogers mutters in the ghost of a whisper.

Loki glances around the room. "Tell me, where does Thor keep the Tesseract?"

"I don't know."

Loki frowns in irritation. "When did you last see it?"

"I've never seen it here." Rogers exhales long and slow, the scent of blood and bile detectable on his breath.

"Hm." Loki hates to leave the Tesseract behind, but he does not have time to physically search for it, especially if Thor has concealed the thing somewhere out in the wild. Loki's spell for detecting magical objects in the near vicinity is imprecise and none too wide-ranging, and Stark is already on edge about the prospect of leaving the others with Thor; he will not be reassured by an announcement that they need to wait another week to even begin. 

Loki hesitates another moment before deciding he will have to leave without the Tesseract. "Stark humbly requests you stay alive until we get back." _Or until time shifts and resets and you forget the misery you have seen and felt._

Rogers smiles, giving Loki a glimpse of the way Thor's managed to rearrange--slightly, but still--Rogers' once-perfect white teeth. "He's never humbly done a thing in his life," Rogers whispers.

"Even so." Loki pats Rogers gently on the shoulder as he stands to go. "I forbid you to die while we're gone. I do not want his heart broken. If you fail to see him again in this life, let it be because I have fixed what has gone wrong."

Rogers squints as if attempting to make sense of these statements, but the last few words obviously strike a firmer chord, and his damaged face clears into straightforward resolve. "What you made wrong, you mean," Rogers says, unsparing in his criticism as always, as though he's found his inner fortitude again.

"Do we not all make mistakes, Captain?" Loki asks him softly, and he leaves without a backwards glance.

*

Thor is fucking Rogers rather viciously when Loki enters to say farewell the next day. Rogers is suspended by chains from the ceiling, and he and Thor are both naked. Thor's hair is mussed and wild as though it hasn't seen a comb in days, and he has random smears of blood on his body. He looks like some demented barbarian, like a disturbed animal.

Thor doesn't look up at Loki or acknowledge his presence. Rogers doesn't either, but that might be because Rogers' eyes are swollen shut.

"Brother," Loki says.

Thor doesn't even turn. "What?"

"I am going to Latveria to see Doom."

Thor glances over at him, finally. "What do you want with him?"

"I am noticing a malfunction in some of the collars. Chiefly Stark's, but after examining the one on Strange, I believe that one is not working as intended either."

"So?" Thor makes a face like his words are senseless or foolish. "Strange is asleep forever, and Stark follows you about like a trained puppy, big brown eyes, eager to please."

Loki frowns. "Do you trust them now? I do not. They are dangerous if they cannot be strictly controlled. Even Stark. Perhaps especially Stark."

"You should summon Doom here then," Thor says, pulling out and circling Rogers. Loki averts his eyes from the repulsive sight of Thor's bloodied and soiled cock.

"And risk offending him? We would risk losing his contribution of aid against Jotenheim, should we need it when I journey forth to claim the kingship."

"Why do we even need his help?" Thor sounds sullen. "You and I can do that alone."

"Thor, we discussed this." Loki allows a trace of his annoyance to seep out into his voice in response to the whiny note in Thor's.

"Fine," Thor says, dismissively, as though he cannot be troubled to argue any further. As though he cares so little. "How long will you be gone?"

"Perhaps a day or two, surely no more than a week." _Forever, brother, though I hope to meet you again in a better world than the one we have made together._ "It depends entirely on Doom, you know how he is. Do you need anything before my departure?"

"No." Thor claps a hand on Rogers' shoulder, squeezing to what looks like the point of pain as he delivers several particularly brutal thrusts. Rogers keeps his face half turned away, but Loki can see him biting his already-bloodied lips. 

Suddenly Thor turns. "Loki. Remember that you are mine. You may have lain with Doom in the past, but no longer."

"If our dalliance troubles you, I will restrain myself," Loki says, cultivating a slight smile for the most convincing lie, an expression meant to suggest he's amused by the jealousy, yet willing to humor Thor, who squints at him. "I am yours," Loki admonishes. 

"Good," Thor says at last, and he turns away. Thor was always simple to fool, and he's too gullible even in his mistrustful madness.

"Try not to kill anyone while I'm gone," Loki says in farewell, but sentiment touches, then tugs at him, and he cannot resist saying also: "Goodbye."

Thor gives no answer, his focus back on Rogers, and so Loki turns and takes his leave. As he rides the elevator up and traces the familiar walk back through his rooms, both his heart and his feet feel heavy.

*

Stark drives the vehicle out and parks the misshapen machine in the dirt outside the Tower. Just on the off chance Thor might have turned his attention from the Rogers Project to glance outside, Loki totes out the Iron Man armor under cover of an illusion. Stark carries Strange, a gangly, dangling slab of middle-aged human cargo that Loki does not trouble himself to hide, and both suit and sorcerer get stashed in the backseat. Stark buckles up the seatbelt around Strange, pauses for a second, and then straps the other seatbelt around his Iron Man armor.

Stark is back in T-shirt and jeans, and he's wearing sunglasses. Loki can smell the soap he rinsed from his body as well as a subtle scent from his wet hair.

"Let me drive?" Stark asks.

Loki never considered the alternative. Driving a human automobile cannot be harder than any other transport, but he has no particular attachment to the idea of learning. But just to be contrary, as he goes to the front passenger seat he says, "You don't know where we're going."

"I can take directions and I'm not afraid to ask for them." Stark appears pleased to be given this tacit permission, and he slides behind the wheel and slams the door. "Though yeah, have to admit I've been wondering why we would try to drive to Latveria if we're in Greenland. One hell of a roadtrip." Stark turns the key in the ignition. "Where to?"

"Head due east," Loki says, and Stark glances up at the compass built into the vehicle to orient them.

They drive for about five minutes before Loki sees the place where flecks of starlight map the ley line to his searching eyes even in broad daylight. He points ahead, to where shrubbery conceals the rocky slope of a hill. "See that clump of bushes?"

"I see a ton of bushes?"

"Look where I'm pointing. Go faster and aim for those bushes. Accelerate to, say, forty miles per hour and drive into them."

"Seriously? Forty on this terrain?"

"Yes. Accelerate right now."

Stark groans. "Magic is just the worst," Stark says, but he angles the car towards the bushes and the engine roars beneath them, the vehicle shaking and nearly vibrating them over the rough ground as the vehicle takes on speed. Stark raises his voice to be heard over the thrum of the engine and the foliage as they go. "Are you sure you're not just trying to kill me?"

"You will find out shortly," Loki teases. Stark screeches wordlessly as the car passes through the bushes and into the rock face, entering the ley line tunnel within.

"Holy. Shit," Stark says, gasping like he's having a heart attack as the vehicle hurtles through the electrified air of the ley tunnel. 

"Maintain speed." Loki reaches over and grips the wheel, steering them along through the glowing, rushing passage, because holding course in a ley tunnel is a delicate art.

When they shoot back out into dusty sunlight, Stark exhales unsteadily. Loki lets go of the wheel. 

"I have far more interesting ways to kill you if I wanted to," Loki tells him in the sudden quiet.

To his credit, Stark recovers his equanimity quickly, and he blinks up at the sun before the high spires of Castle Doom catch his attention. "Great. Good to know."

"There's a road up ahead. Park the car off the side, we'll walk the rest of the way," Loki says.

"That was a pretty direct trip," Stark comments as he drives to the base of the hill.

Loki nods placidly. "It is no accident that Doom built his castle on a ley-line. Nor that we placed your Tower astride one of the same."

"A ley-what?"

"Magical waypoints, hubs with crossing pathways. Bring Strange," Loki says as he gets out. "Leave your armor in the car."

Stark balks. "Can't I put the suit on? Strange is heavy."

"No. If we show up looking prepared for a fight, Victor might get the wrong idea." Loki sighs, then takes pity on Stark. "I will carry the sorcerer."

"I can do it, I'm just gonna complain the whole time is all," Stark says, opening the backseat door and gathering Strange up into his arms. "Why don't we just leave him in the car? We can crack the window." Before Loki can either dismiss or consider this idea, Stark continues. "Actually, I'm kind of afraid my suit will get stolen."

Loki shakes his head. "I think not. No one would dare."

"Oh, right," Stark says. "Home of the world's lowest crime rate because the despot in charge is terrifying to the populace."

Stark's sweating by the time they're halfway up the hill, and his strides have slowed. Loki stops and comes into Stark's space. "Here, give me him," he says, and Stark gratefully bundles the weight of Sorcerer Strange into his arms.

In another five minutes they reach the place where the road leading to the Castle Doom ends. The drawbridge stands closed and perfectly aligned with its abutments. No robotic guards are around, which is unusual in Loki's experience. Loki glances into the empty gully below, a twenty foot drop down, then turns and returns Strange to Stark, who staggers a little under Strange's weight.

"Let me enter, Victor," Loki yells. "Do not send one of your bots, either," he shouts. "We both know I will know if you do."

"Of course you would," Doom says from above them. Loki and Stark look up simultaneously. Doom stands upon the leftward rampart, behind a chest-high parapet with his arms crossed.

"Hello, lover," Loki greets him. Doom does not seem impressed by Loki's sudden appearance at his doorstep with servants in tow, nor his salutation. "Are you going to invite me up?"

Doom reaches down and his glove emits a pale blue energy signature. Loki feels the magic grasping at his limbs, immobilizing him for the second-long period it takes to teleport the three of them to the top of the stone redoubt beside Doom. Loki lets it transport him without resistance.

"Doom has witnessed the destruction wrought by your brother's growing instability," Doom states, his intelligent brown eyes severe as ever.

"So you already know why I am here," Loki says, not quite making it a question.

"Doom sees all. As usual you are reckless in your choices and poor in your judgements. I warned you this would happen."

Doom loves to criticize; denigrating others makes him feel superior. Loki isn't bothered by it any, not at this point. "I did not travel halfway around Midgard for a lecture, Victor. I came for your help."

"What does Loki ask of Doom?"

Loki glances around. "Is this the ideal place to discuss matters?"

"I project an illusion of our absence. We cannot be seen nor heard by any."

Loki takes his word for it, gesturing to Stark still holding Strange in a bridal carry in his arms. "I need your time travel device to send the three of us back to change the past. To change this timeline back to something less disasterous and more status quo. Then I need you to bring us back to the present." He pauses to see how Doom's taking his words, but Doom says nothing, so he goes on. "I hope it will not take more than one attempt, but I need you to assist me until we get it right. Which is to say, Thor back to normal without causing any more catastrophic reverberations."

Doom remains silent for a long time before he answers. "Doom can achieve this. However... it would be simpler to send Doombots to accomplish what you require if your goal is to destroy Odinson prior to his dark rise."

"No," Loki says. "Murdering my brother is not what I want, nor what I plan. It's quite unacceptable to me, in fact."

Doom stares down at him. The discrepancy in their height when clad and armored is only about three inches, but Doom always stands close enough to force him to notice the difference. A deliberate choice, Loki suspects.

"What do you intend to do in the past to change the future?" Doom asks.

"I want to have a conversation with myself."

Doom shakes his head. "Meeting your past self is inadvisable," Doom says disparagingly. "You refused to listen to me. You will not listen to yourself either. I will investigate more deeply, but I have already sifted through possible timelines."

"Well, that is a surprise. You were that worried?"

"Your brother has become a rabid dog," Doom warns. "A problem. One that will be need to be corrected one way or another."

Loki narrows his eyes. "You speak of violating our bargain."

"No," Doom says. "But Odinson has become violent and dissolute, and he will, given sufficient time."

Loki can do nothing but concede this point. "You might have me there."

"I could assist you," Doom decides. "Let us negotiate a price."

"Negotiate quickly, Strange is a lot heavier than he looks," Stark puts in, shifting beneath his burden.

"Then set him down," Loki says impatiently, without glancing back.

Doom's mask shifts to look past Loki. "Your selection of traveling companions intrigues me," Doom announces. "The Sorcerer Supreme and Tony Stark."

"Doctor Doom." Stark drones the greeting disdainfully, but when Doom twists a hand and his ice blue magic conveys Strange from Stark's arms, Stark adds, "Thanks," sounding awkward and surprised as he lowers his suddenly empty arms.

"How do you like Doom's work?" Doom asks, drawing a curved line across his own armored throat.

"I can't say I'm a fan," Stark says, and in his peripheral vision Loki can see Stark sticking a finger between his neck and the sleek titanium alloy of the collar. "This cheap nickel plating. It kinda itches. I might have an allergy."

Doom makes an amused-sounding exhale.

"I would be more than happy to share Stark for a night or two," Loki hedges, carefully not looking back at him, but he can easily imagine the outraged and disgusted look Stark must be wearing at this offer. "But I will need his aid against my brother in case the plan does not work out."

Doom scoffs audibly. "Doom has no use for your pitiful slave. And Doom's plans do not fail."

Loki bites his cheek to refrain from bringing up Reed Richards and the handful of times he knows that Doom's machinations have not, in fact, gone to plan. Despite how tempting provocation is to Loki, despite the miles of natural delight he sails from needling Doom's inflated ego, now is a time to butter Victor up, not wriggle under his skin. If the act of biting his inner cheek looks like a smirk, Loki can do little about that. "The wizard I would prefer to keep asleep until such time as he is needed, wherever you just stashed him."

Doom says nothing.

"I propose this," Loki ventures. "I will owe you a favor."

Doom's booming laugh echoes even around the low stone walls of the parapet. "Doom has no need of some future boon from you, god of Asgard."

"Any favor," Loki emphasizes. "How can you not love that? It's so open-ended."

"'Until you get it right' could mean any number of attempts depending on your competence, which has been inadequate thus far," Doom points out. "Potentially a great effort on Doom's part. Especially if you insist on talking to your past self, which I have told you is both futile and unwise. Think you manipulating the timestream is easy or simple?"

Loki chooses not to answer, because Doom greatly likes to hear himself talk, and any objection will only puff him up and spur him to go on talking.

But Doom doesn't say much more, only adding, "My price will be commeasurate with the time and work and risk involved."

And so they come to the coal and ice. Loki looks at him shrewdly. "Spit it out, Victor. What is it you want?"

"Doom requires the Eye of Agamotto," Doom commands. "I know you have the amulet in your possession."

"You cannot make use of it any more than I can," Loki begins, already knowing what Doom is about to say.

"Doom has no need for the Eye itself. I only desire the Infinity Stone the amulet houses."

"You would destroy an ancient, pricelessly powerful relic like so much costume jewelry?" It's not news, rather this is just as he expected, and exactly what he himself had planned, and Loki cannot help but smile. Doom is not unlike him, and to discover the footpaths of their similarities is both amusing and pleasing. Loki wonders how difficult Doom will find the task of prying apart the golden lids of the Eye.

Doom gazes at him witheringly. "Do you truly doubt it?"

"I did not need the reminder of why I like you, Victor, but alas I cannot offer you the Eye, or the Stone within," Loki says, making sure to sound appropriately regretful, though he's still smiling slightly. "I will need the Sorcerer to wield the relic and accompany me when you send me back, to avoid a time split. Interesting though it would be to spin this disaster out and create an alternate universe, I'd rather not. I am finding I prefer not to deal with annoying consequences."

Loki watches Doom's eyes narrow behind the mask, revealing additional twin expanses of scarred skin in the hollows under his eyes, beneath which faint curves suggest Victor has high cheekbones. Though the cast metal mask reveals little enough of Doom's face, many expressions translate surprisingly well from Doom's eyes alone, and sometimes a flash of lips or faintly discolored teeth beneath the grate over his mouth. "You think my ability to manipulate the timestream so limited, Loki? You will not need Stephen Strange to wield the Eye of Agamotto on your behalf," Doom proclaims. "For Doom will be accompanying you himself."

"Oh, splendid," Loki says with a smile. "Then I shall deliver the Eye into your capable hands." Though anyone would be reluctant, he has considered his options, and he's willing enough to part with this treasure. Loki can think of many intriguing uses for the Time Stone, but if he lacks Thor, whether by his side or a disapproving force working against him, he has nothing. Reaching into his personal pocket dimension, Loki withdraws the Eye from the void seam he keeps around his abdomen and offers the relic to Doom on his outstretched palm.

"You're just--giving it to him?" Stark objects. "Is this your first rodeo or something? You're supposed to wait and give him the macguffin _after_ he--"

"Doom's word is his bond," Doom thunders, interrupting as only Doom can. "Any man who claims otherwise is a liar, and a poor liar at that. All know Doom keeps his promises without fail."

"You don't even know where he put Dr. Strange--"

"I trust him, Stark, now shut up," Loki says over his shoulder.

Doom takes the pendant, scrutinizes it, and curls his metal-encased fingers around the smooth golden edges, making the Eye vanish, undoubtedly into his own pocket dimension. After the artifact disappears, Doom brushes off his gauntlets as though they're dusty. "Our deal is struck."

"How soon can we do it?" Loki asks.

"If you insist you must go yourself, Doom must make adjustments to the chronal variance inhibitor. A day's work, no more."

"Ah." Loki cares little for the silly names that men of Midgardian science use to festoon their work, but the time frame is sooner than he'd expected. "Good."

"Will you be sharing Doom's bed tonight?"

Doom's indifferent tone suggests this query is a matter of scheduling, nothing more, but the fact that it's asked at all is notable and so the question takes Loki slightly by surprise. Doom must be growing fond of him indeed to inquire so bluntly. Doom has even missed him, perhaps. Loki feels a seraphic smile spread over his face, then his expression turns mischievous, and he makes no effort to repress the impulse to grin up at Doom.

"Dear Victor, don't I always?" Loki says sweetly.

Doom hums a haughty, wordless rumble in response and teleports away in another flash of ice blue light, leaving Loki standing alone with Stark on the parapet.

Stark looks at him. "Seriously, you're going to fuck that guy?"

*

As if on cue, a servant approaches, a young woman who emerges from the dark stone staircase that leads down into the castle. She bows her head and shoulders to them, then escorts them through the torchlit corridors of Castle Doom. "What's your story?" Stark asks her, but the girl only lowers her eyes shyly. All Victor's servants are meek as mice.

"So Doom made these," Stark remarks casually, fingering his collar as they walk the winding halls.

Loki sees no particular reason to lie. "Yes."

"From what I just witnessed, not to mention everything I've ever read, he seems like a hard-bargaining sort of dictator."

Loki tilts his head, glancing at Stark and reading between the lines. "You want to know what we gave him for them."

"Yeah, just a little curious as to why you'd want to get cozy with him, not to mention why he'd want to with you. Clearly the part where you guys literally get cozy isn't enough to make him do stuff for you gratis."

Loki keeps his voice even. "My brother and I made him a promise that when we took over this world and ruled it jointly, and claimed our respective birthrights, Asgard and Jotunheim, the nation of Latveria would remain sovereign in perpetuity."

"Huh."

"The pact was good for us and for him. We needed his aid to make you prisoners as Thor desired, particularly Banner, and once Thor and I came to rule a third of the known universe, with all the immense power that entails, of course Doom would want to ensure a peace between us and his country rather than conflict. Alliances have been built on far less," Loki says as the servant silently shows them into a bedchamber, bowing as she retreats. "Not what you expected?"

"No, it makes sense," Stark says, scratching his shoulder. "I mean, it's gross and fascist on all counts, but it makes sense. I'd think he might backstab you though."

"Possibly," Loki agrees, and he changes the subject. "We should rest. I doubt either of us will end up doing much sleeping tonight."

"How dare you offer me to him, by the way?" Stark demands a bit suddenly. "Jesus, what's wrong with you. Hours after your very sincere apology which was in retrospect some pretty half-assed garbage."

Loki throws himself down on the bed, registering how weary he feels. "Are you truly so defensive of your virtue, shredded as it is with the things you've done and the choices you've made? Do you not want to seize the chance to set your world right, whatever the cost?"

"If you were willing to give him Dr. Strange's magical My Little Pony necklace all along, there was no point offering me up like a side salad," Stark says emphatically, as though he is firm in this conviction. "It has nothing to do with 'virtue' and everything to do with consent. But I guess you've proven you don't know what the latter is."

Loki feels like falling asleep, not arguing, and so he closes his eyes, resting them. "What is your objection to Victor?"

"Only everything," Stark says, as if he cannot believe the question. "He runs an enforced monarchy. He wasn't even born into it, he's a peasant who seized power and wields it like a club. He's a dictator."

"A point in his great favor," Loki says.

"Oh yeah, like you're an objective judge. Latverians have no codified human rights at all. That Time magazine profile on him a couple years back was complete bullshit. _Latverians: The Luckiest Citizens on Earth?_ Give me a break." Stark begins methodically pulling out books from the book case, flipping through them, then replacing them one by one, and Loki realizes Stark is looking for the sort of electronics used to spy and eavesdrop. "The internet here's censored out the wazoo, and the citizens pretty much swim in propaganda. Only the most desperate refugees emigrate to this, this unreconstructed dystopia, and he only allows them to because it gives him power over more people. He keeps them ignorant of the rest of the world. It's a totalitarian hell."

"I am sure the refugees are happy to have somewhere to go where there is food and safety," Loki says. "You know Victor and I have similar feelings about freedom for humans. You don't need it."

"And I don't care that much about looks, but he's supposed to be hideous under that mask," Stark continues. "On top of being a terrible person."

"Mind your tongue, Stark." But Loki blinks, repressing the urge to sleep, and he rises to his elbow on the bed, propping his chin in his hand, because if Stark wishes to talk, Loki desires to talk with him.

"I don't care if Victor von fucking Doom knows I think he's a pompous douche and a tyrant," Stark insists, still searching the books. "Do you actually enjoy banging him?"

"Do you think I would fornicate with him if I didn't?"

"Yes," Stark says firmly. "Hell yes you would."

Loki cannot suppress a sweetly doting smile, because Stark's gotten to know him better than he realized. "You're right," Loki agrees. "I would if it obtained me something, which as you have pointed out, it does not. But. Doom possesses one of the most brilliant minds living of any race in the nine realms. He has mastered both sorcery and Earthen technology as well as craftsmanship from other worlds, and he uses the combination of all in ways even I cannot understand. He is by far the most interesting man I have met in my travels through the realms--"

"Yeah? Does he drink Dos Equis?"

"He drinks wine, Stark. He rules his country with an iron fist--" _without being insane like Thor--_ "--yet benevolently enough to please the masses, and he is very, very skilled in bed."

Stark scoffs. "You sound like you've drunk a gallon of the Latverian Kool-Aid."

Though the reference is a mystery, the gist is readily apparent, and Loki rolls his eyes.

"Why do you really sleep with him?"

"My exhaustive accounting of his merits was unconvincing? Well. Would you believe we have the same favorite color?"

"Are you just saying this stuff because he has the room bugged and can hear us?" Stark finishes flipping through the books and pokes his head into the washroom, then wanders back out to the center of the chamber, lifting a vase of cut lilies and spring gentians to inspect underneath, then walking around the room running a finger slowly all along the chair rail. Stark pokes around, seemingly on a mission to pick up every object in the room. Then he opens the wardrobe, running his hands over the polished wooden surfaces inside. "Assuming this place really has that technology, cause Reed has told me some wild stuff, but I'm just saying, from the looks of Castle Gloom here I'm amazed it even has indoor plumbing."

Loki idly traces the elaborately handsewn lines of thread running through the coverlet, watching Stark put his ear to the wall and tap the stone, then approach the mirror and press his fingernail straight against it, then cup his hands around his face to look close-up, attempting to tell if the glass is two-way. "No. It's the truth," Loki says. "As a friend, I strongly suggest that if he deigns to fuck you, you allow him. You will not regret it."

Stark turns and stares, his body growing still and strange. "'As a friend?' Are we friends now?"

"No," Loki answers, realizing what he's just said. He's grown too lethargic to choose his words with care. "I suppose not." He pauses infintesimally. "Compatriots, on the other hand...?"

"Partners," Stark says a little grimly, as though this is a grisly affirmation, an alliance made with a monster.

"Then, 'partner'... we need Doom firmly on our side. So if he so much as hints at a desire for you, I suggest you kneel at his feet and follow any instruction he gives you."

Stark scowls. "Does he even take the mask off?"

"Not for me," Loki replies, and he intones, " _No man nor god may gaze upon the face of Doom_."

Though Loki mimics this pronouncement without replicating Doom's inhuman resonance, Stark laughs, and Loki silently feels pleased, simply appreciating the mischievous quality of Stark's grin and the fact that it was he to bring such mirth to Stark's face. Alarm bells sound anew in his mind at this ill-considered attachment he's developed, but it's too late to halt his inclination now. Loki sighs.

"Do you trust him to follow through?" Stark asks. "You handed over our only valuable asset pretty damn promptly."

"I trust him, as I said, to live up to his end of an accord, at least to a point," Loki says. "I would not have placed the Eye into his hands otherwise." Stark continues to look doubtful. "I am twenty times your age and in Asgard they name me Silvertongue. I know how to bargain."

Stark flops down next to him on the bed, sighing. The frame has the appearance of an ancient, creaky antique, but the mattress is comfortable with both plenty of support and plenty of give, and the ensemble makes nary a squeak as the mattress takes the weight of a second body.

"That article was unethical journalism," Stark mutters.

"You sound like you, too, think Victor an interesting man," Loki says dryly.

"Fuck, no." 

"Did I invite you up here," Loki says, but no sooner has he said the words then he regrets his proclivity to push away those he truly wants to pull close. The warmth of Stark's body is pleasant, and Loki rolls over so their bodies are near, sliding a possessive hand up over Stark's hip.

"No, you only offered up my orifices to a shitty megalomaniac who sucks balls," Stark says.

"Only if you're very lucky."

Stark pulls the coverlet up from the side so Loki doesn't need to move. "You said we should get some rest," Stark says. "What's that if not an invitation."

Loki closes his eyes, feeling himself start to drift again. For obvious reasons he hasn't been sleeping well of late in the Tower. But now, at last, he thinks he might be able to rest.

"Loki?"

The wavering, uncharacteristically uncertain note in Stark's firm voice rouses his attention, and Loki opens his eyes to steadily regard Stark beside him.

"I want you to take this off me," Stark says, fingering his collar. "Will you please?"

Loki frowns at him.

"Come on. We're on the same side now, stopping Thor, resetting time, fixing things." Stark looks at him pleadingly. "You said you regret all that's happened. You agreed we're compatriots, partners. You don't need to keep me a prisoner, so you don't need me to wear this anymore."

Loki's fingers itch to grant Stark's wish, but Loki feels at a loss, like he's falling through an uncertain expanse of shadow, tumbling through the void beyond the stars again with no idea how or where his descent might end. "If I remove it, I lose my sole guarantee you will behave."

"You don't need a guarantee. I promise you I won't do anything here except help you," Stark says, his eyes dark and earnest pools in the dim light from the candles. "You do trust me, or I wouldn't be here."

Loki hesitates still, but at last reaches up and unsnaps the metal clasp, manumitting him.

"Thanks," Stark says softly, rubbing at his unblemished neck with a sort of relief.

"Do not make me regret this," Loki warns, but he strokes a finger along Stark's cheek to acknowledge Stark's gratitude. For a moment Loki considers his safety, if he is to fall asleep in a room with Stark with no collar and no threats upon nearby hostages hanging over his head, but no, Stark will not harm him now. They both want to undo what's been done. Opening his pocket dimension, Loki places the collar back inside and closes the seam. 

Stark beholds his decision to retain the collar without remark, and he soon closes his eyes, his breaths turning long and slow.

*

Loki's awakened by the timid voice of one of Castle Doom's many servants. Loki has shifted closer to Stark in his sleep, for his face is pressed against Stark's bicep.

"Our liege lord requests your presence, sir."

"And Stark's as well?" Loki mutters as he sits up.

"The master did not say."

Loki prods Stark in the shoulder. Loki wants to bring him along for reasons he still doesn't feel like examining too closely. "Stark, wake up. Doom calls."

"What? Oh, yeah," Stark says, blinking, then rubbing his eyes. Stark always wakes up readily, whether he's taken adequate rest or not.

"Clean your teeth first," Loki suggests, because Stark is only human. "Then we go."

He reclines on the bed brooding while Stark makes use of the washroom, and the servant waits outside their door. When they spill out into the corridor, the servant leads them along a familiar path through the castle. The walk takes several minutes, because Doom declines to host guests in great proximity to the chambers he himself utilizes. Loki has suffered this routine before.

When they reach a familiar set of double doors, the servant opens both and stands aside, bowing low as Loki leads Stark through the entryway. Unlike earlier in the day, the servant leaves the doors open as she departs.

Stark takes in the palatial bedchamber. "Aaand he's not even here."

"He will come," Loki says, looking around, though he's been inside this room relatively recently. Doom's tastes vacillate to strange extremes of asceticism and hedonism, and nothing has changed in the layout. The enormous bed dominates its own part of the room, draped in rich fabrics in several shades of green, jungle duvet and light wintergreen sheets and gauzy drawn-back curtains the pale color of new leaves in spring, but the sole source of light comes from the fire burning in the far hearth and the glow from a litany of candles, hundreds perhaps, blazing in equidistant wells set on opposite sides of the room. The bedroom is only half symmetrical, thrown off by a sitting room to one side. Loki doubts these chambers are anything more than a staging room for sex, for though the bookcase in the sitting room stands full of books and a wardrobe sits along one wall, the wardrobe is always empty but for spare blankets and extra towels. The washroom has amenities for a guest but nowhere lies any sign of personal effects. Doom has passed several dozen nights beside him in this bed, yet clearly this room isn't Doom's actual bedchamber. Someday Loki will coax Doom into hosting a tryst within his private sanctum. Even then, Loki suspects he will be shown a well-appointed decoy. Victor has layers upon secretive layers.

Stark condescendingly gestures to one bank of burning candles. "No electric lights even in the master suite. It's like the Dark Ages in here. This is exactly the sort of backwater--"

Loki flips open the nearest cabinet door to show Stark the eyecatching sight of blinking lights in a large array of colors, with a number of small electronic panels nestled in the wiring concealed within.

"--huh. So Doom just really... really likes candles..."

Doom suddenly appears in the doorway. Doom has two dressing gowns that Loki has seen, a gray silk and a green silk, and tonight he's wearing the gray. The shade is close to the color of his enhanced titanium armor, for Doom is nothing if not consistent. His hands are exposed and his feet bare, allowing for a silent approach. When clad, Doom's clanking metal sabatons announce him well in advance of his arrival. As always, Doom's face is covered by a mask, though no straps hold this mask on. Loki closes the cabinet.

Doom is not quite so tall out of his armor, and Loki can look slightly down at him when they stand close together, but Doom always bends him over or sends him to his knees quickly enough that Loki has little time to enjoy the height advantage.

"Phillipe of Gascony, you have hair," Stark says as if astonished. Doom's full head of short, nondescript brown hair is combed straight back; Doom's plain dark brown hair and eyes are the only ordinary things about him. "Who knew?"

Doom does not greet Stark, nor straightforwardly acknowledge the absence of his control collar, and he behaves as though responding to Stark's comment is beneath him. He only looks Stark over carefully. "Does Stark choose to be here?" Doom inquires.

"Willing, unwilling, it's all the same to me," Loki says, and Stark gives him a long look.

Doom slowly crosses his arms. "Not to Doom."

"Clearing the lowest bar, nice," Stark says. Loki ignores him, as does Doom.

Loki shrugs. "They all love it when you deliver ten orgasms in a minute," Loki says. "They're only humans." Doom's mask turns to stare coldly at him. "No offense, dear Victor."

"You've never given me ten orgasms in a minute," Stark says, making it a complaint.

"You never asked," Loki teases him. He glances at Doom, not quite ready to crook his fingers and invite Stark into Doom's bed, but tempted to all the same. Loki wants this for reasons he cannot, will not, must not name.

But Doom's mask revolves to Stark, and he appears to be on the same page as Loki. "Then Doom invites you to join us."

Loki realizes he's holding his breath, and he exhales.

"You don't have to," Loki tells Stark. "But if you choose to, I will certainly bestow upon you all the ecstasy you have been missing." Loki whisks off his clothes with an unembellished sweep of magic, magnanimously showing them his naked body, then casts back the velvet duvet and stretches out on Doom's sumptuous bed.

"Jesus," Stark says, but he considers only briefly before he pulls his T-shirt over his head, then unbuttons and unzips his jeans. "Okay."

Doom waits until Stark is mostly disrobed before he uncrosses his arms, peels off the silk robe and tosses the garment aside, letting it fall into a soft puddle on the floor. Doom's face may be disfigured, but his body is majestically muscled, more so than many Asgardians, in fact, with every muscle in his abdomen tautly defined. Nearly his whole powerful body is lanuginous, yet the hair is so fine and thin Loki does not mind it. The hair at his groin, by contrast, grows thick, dark and dense. Victor's skin is swarthy despite presumably never feeling the kiss of the sun. In or out of the armor, Doom projects an aura of strength and discipline, and even unaroused he's stunningly well-endowed. Victor is a large man all over, broad and tall, so perhaps his prick size is a natural gift, but Loki suspects he's augmented himself with magic or even technology. Loki notices Stark looking, though to be fair it's difficult not to look.

In the dim light of the array of candles and under the illusion of his mask, it's anyone's conjecture exactly what Doom is observing, but from Loki's vantage point he appears to be performing a visual inspection of the blue-lit arc reactor buried in Stark's chest.

"I see you work out," Stark says to him.

Doom ignores him, and Loki wonders if Doom is rethinking his choice to bring two mouthy sex partners to his bed this night instead of one. But no, Doom probably relishes the opportunity to dominate and insult multiple bedmates at once.

And then again, tonight Loki feels... strange. Unsettled. Not so talkative, and not because he's trying to play nice for the sake of the bargain he and Doom have struck. He feels... hollowed out in some way. He feels off. And Loki thrives on uncertainty, on chaos, and he should have no cause for nerves. Loki looks back and forth between Stark, his pet turned something more, and Doom, his casual sometime lover turned collaborator, though of course not without his steep asking price.

Hiding his hints of unease, Loki lounges back on Doom's high bed, well aware of the erotic picture he makes sprawled on the mint-colored sheet--all this green sets off the luminescence of his irises, he knows--and watches the two of them. Doom waits for Stark to pad over to the bed before approaching himself. Perhaps deferring to his guests is Victor's idea of decorous comportment, but Loki would wager this sort of thing stems from caution. Even in the bedroom, a figment of paranoia threads through Doom's every action.

"Believe it or not, this will be my first threesome with two dudes," Stark says. "I know, I can scarcely believe it myself."

"Be silent," Doom says, pushing Stark flat and pulling his upper body forward, and as soon as Stark is in place Doom steers his prick to Stark's lips. The bed, Loki has noted on previous visits, is the ideally customized height for Doom to fuck the orifices of someone lying prone.

Doom is at once selfish and generous, gentlemanly and unyielding. Any remotely submissive act seems to be out of the question, yet he has some kind of personal code guiding his behavior even here, and he has always ascertained Loki's pleasure before his own. Granted, this sexual conscientiousness probably springs from Victor's demandingly king-sized ego and bloated sense of perfectionism, but no matter. Loki doubts any who visit slide forth from these sheets unsatisfied. One of these nights Loki will turn the tables and push Doom down to his all-too-mortal knees.

But not tonight.

Loki watches Stark suck Doom off in much the same way Loki's familiar with by now: messily and sloppily, saliva everywhere, drool and precome all over his cheeks, nose and chin. Stark combs his fingers through the thick curls around Doom's cock, tugging gently as though he likes the bushiness.

Loki, by virtue of his Asgardian body, is too heavy for Doom to manhandle without employing sorcery, but when Doom decides he's had enough of his cock in Stark's mouth, he picks Stark up and flips him around as though Stark weighs no more than a doll. Stark's face is streaked with their shared fluids, and he wipes his mouth with the back of his hand, looking breathless.

Doom shrinks his cock to the size of a man's finger; Stark is not the proper position to see this compression happen, but Loki is familiar with this maneuver of Doom's. The retraction and expansion trick is but one more reason Loki suspects Doom's augmented his natural endowment. Earth men are even more size-obsessed than Asgardians, if such a thing is possible, and Doom is nothing if not image conscious. On the other hand, Doom certainly shows no inclination to alter the situation with his body hair.

Having seen Doom's prick only in its larger dimensions, Stark appears faintly anxious when Doom presses his legs back and nudges against his entrance with no preparation. Loki knows well the expression of bravado Stark gets when he's steeling himself for impending pain, but all Stark says is, "You better be wearing a condom right now."

"I am not," Doom says, his eyes opening a touch wider beneath the mask in a way that suggests his eyebrows lifting, and his hips still.

Stark looks scandalized. "You're the ruler of a small country and you're not wearing a condom? That is the most --"

"I do not have any in my possession," Doom says innocently. "But you scan as infection free."

"You don't have -- you _scanned_ me?!"

"Naturally." Doom holds himself over Stark comfortably for this conversation. "Do you think it some extraordinary coincidence that there is no sickness or disease within Latveria's borders, save for the common cold?"

"I know you have a loony set of quarantine rules," Stark says before he concedes. "Okay, fine, Doctor Word-Is-My-Bond, I'm trusting in your supposedly amazing honesty. Bareback then." This last bit Stark adds as though daring Doom to follow through. "Breed me."

" _Breed_ you?" Loki repeats disbelievingly.

"It's slang, Loki, don't have a panic attack," Stark says, putting an arm behind his head on the mattress, and to Doom he adds, "Really, I'm shocked you play hard enough not to have cured the rhinovirus yet. My feeling that I have to approve is warring with my feeling that you should get on that."

"Do not mind him," Loki says to Doom, casually urging indulgence. "He thinks himself droll."

Doom looks down intently, as though waiting for some signal from Stark before continuing. If Stark gives an indication, however, Loki misses what the sign is.

Loki props his head on his hand to watch Stark's face change as Doom pushes inside slowly and smoothly. Stark's neutral expression gives way to a flash of strained pain, and Doom stops and rests in stillness inside him, monitoring Stark's face before progressing further. Stark relaxes soon after, pleasure transforming his face as he cries out for the first time. Doom remains unmoving, and Loki can infer from the rising and falling of Stark's moaning those moments when Doom's bringing his prick back to its typical, gratifying, outlandish size.

Doom undulates his hips carefully at first, but when at last he's satisfied himself of his partner's readiness, Doom takes Stark mercilessly. Doom's thrusts are strong, yet restrained, his movements calculated and deliberate. Doom's musculature is such that he can hold himself up throughout a long session of sex with only one arm, his only concession to normal human limitations being when he switches arms occasionally.

Loki feels in no particular hurry to join in, for he enjoys watching, but when Doom stretches out an arm to him, he obligingly moves closer and falls in alongside the two of them, running a hand over Stark's side, the soft expanse of vulnerable skin from the sharp jut of his hip up to the start of his ribs. Doom wraps his free arm around Loki and pulls him even nearer, leaning down and diagonally across Stark to nuzzle at Loki's throat.

Doom's mask appears fully in place, but its solidness is illusory now, and Loki feels no hint of cold metal along his neck, only soft, yielding skin marred by the familiar unevenness of scarring.

Stark notices the same thing seconds later and laughs aloud delightedly, reaching over to touch Doom's face through the illusion of titanium alloy. Loki watches Stark's fingers dip into the place where the mask begins and disappear, only to reappear when Doom knocks Stark's hand aside and straightens his body to kiss Stark's mouth.

"Nice image inducer," Stark mumbles into Doom's mouth. The image of Doom's mask eats into Stark's face and his strong jaw, subsuming Stark's flesh into Doom's illusion. The sight is arousing, as though Doom is feasting on Stark's face, overcoming and consuming him starting with his mouth. Loki watches with fully open desire and a fluttering in his stomach.

Without warning, Doom puts a hand to Stark's forehead and says, " _Join_ ," emphatically intoning the word like an incantation, a word of power, and then he reaches with the same hand for Loki. Objections skitter through Loki's mind like startled insects, _What are you doing_ , _How dare you_ , _You cannot touch my mind, I am a god_ but he doesn't pull away immediately enough, and Doom's hand claps against his forehead like a pendulum swinging home.

The magic hits him like a thunderclap, no subtle change. Loki feels Stark's presence, like stepping into a cramped room with Stark inside it, except that Loki can feel his nearness mentally instead of physically. Stark's thoughts are nebulous, jumbled in a haze of lust and arousal and it's difficult to pick them out at first in the swirl, but his mind is cracked open to Loki like a book, and they're _sharing feelings_. Sharing feelings and thoughts and fragmented memories and images, even as physically a new set of sensations overwhelms him, with Loki experiencing what Stark feels as fully as though Doom is penetrating them both. Loki can feel Stark's prick pulsing with unattended need as though it were his own. He cannot help but savor the pleasure from the entrance to Stark's body, the well-punctuated thrusts from Doom within, a whole world of consciousness not his own, but now his to share. Loki realizes all of it within the space of a second.

"You're telepathic," Loki gasps, addressing Doom though he can scarcely take his eyes off Stark, too floored to stop himself from stating the obvious. Stark looks--and feels--as stunned as Loki. Stark's mind streaks instinctively and perversely through those thoughts, emotions and memories Stark most wants to keep undisclosed, and Loki absorbs them all as they barrel through Stark's mind like a small herd of stampeding beasts, one after the other as Stark fights to keep them back and fails repeatedly, abbreviating some, but unable to slap down all of his intrusive secrets as they bubble to the surface. What is a person but their history and their secrets? Stark's eyes are wide and fearful. The thought fleetingly crosses Loki's mind to conceal his warm feelings for Stark in turn, but as he thinks about it it's already too late. Loki too has so much to keep exclusive to himself--his loves, his lies, his betrayals, his aches, his failures, _Thor_. What he has held private should stay thusly. Anger rises within him.

Loki refocuses on Doom, who's radiating the smirk Loki cannot see. "No," Doom answers, and he leans down and sideways to kiss Loki again.

"You should ask before you do brain connections," Loki says irately into his mouth. Loki could try to rip his mind away from Stark's, but severing an unknown enchantment poses real risks, and while Loki could certainly end the spell while protecting himself, breaking Doom's magic with sheer force would chance the possibility of permanently damaging Stark's mind. _No, please_ , Stark thinks, and Loki will not, and he feels Stark's relief, the flash of his gratitude. Loki wonders when he became so risk-averse, even though he already knows. All the while he's hearing the fractured flow of Stark's thoughts.

"I thought you liked mischief," Doom says, sounding terribly entertained.

"This is not mischief, this is mucking about with my mind," Loki says, scraping angrily at Doom's lips with his teeth to let Victor know he's genuinely wrathful. "You would never tolerate that from me."

"You are not Doom," Doom says, pulling his face away. "And I notice you do not object." Doom makes a tiny circle in the air with his chin, indicating himself and Loki and Stark beneath him, whom he's still fucking at an even pace. "I could tell you wanted this."

"I brought Stark with me, so that hardly makes you an observational genius," Loki says condescendingly, and with more accusation he adds: "And you left yourself out of the loop."

"No man or god may know the mind of Doom."

"Why you arrogant--" Loki starts fiercely, but Doom swiftly leans down and cuts his tirade off with a forceful kiss. Loki bites his lip hard this time, tasting blood. Doom says a word of power and headbutts him in response, grabbing his upper arm and wrenching the limb down when Loki tries to rise. Loki seizes Doom's wrist with one hand and his jaw with the other, half of his fingers ending up in Doom's mouth, and for a moment they struggle. Doom could bite his fingers, but human teeth cannot normally break Asgardian skin, and Doom refrains from trying. Doom stops pumping into Stark to grapple with him from within the circle of Stark's spread legs, and though Doom openly augmented his strength with sorcery, Loki is alarmed to find out just how strong Doom can be.

But internally Loki feels Stark laughing at them, at the picture they make as they bicker and then strive against each other, and the feeling of amusement broadcasting from Stark undermines his wrath and weakens his muscles both. 

"Fuck, Doom, that hurts," Stark whines, evidently complaining of the effect of the scuffle on Loki, for he reaches over and rubs his own untouched bicep as if to soothe the phantom pain. "Jesus Christ, at least pull out before you go toe to toe for the Doomstadt High School wrestling championship."

But Stark feels entertained by this development and not really bothered, despite his words. And though a portion of his irritation remains, Loki laughs aloud, because honestly he can do nothing else, and as he lets go of Doom's jaw, Doom's grip on his upper arm eases.

"There's a saying, 'don't stick your dick in crazy,'" Stark says reflectively. "Yet here I am letting crazy stick its, possibly their, dicks in me."

"Someday, Victor," Loki says, a dark promise. "I am going to make you pay for this."

But for now, he will let it go. 

Trying to empty the forefront of his mind, Loki pulls away from Doom and slides down the bed. Seeing what he aims to do, Doom straightens up and resumes fucking Stark at a ninety degree angle, letting one of Stark's legs drop down, and Loki takes Stark's length in his mouth to feel the sensation of sucking what might as well be his own cock. What he finds is that feeling the heady, heart-thumping giddiness of Stark's pleasure, feeling Doom inside Stark and himself both, hearing Stark's chaotic surface thoughts, which are a disorderly mess of _Loki_ and _Steve_ and _fuck yes right there_ and _okay he may be a tyrant but Christ_ all make it difficult for Loki to concentrate on what he's doing. The thought again crosses Loki's mind _conceal--_ but thinking of his feelings for Stark makes him, well, think of them, and he tries not to think or feel too loudly, to minimize his internal mindstream and hone in on the sex act he's performing and the physical feelings he's enjoying from his labors. Loki focuses on the cock in his mouth, on its scent and smoothness and size and the outsize reactions of its owner as Loki pays his sensitive flesh mind as attentively as he can with all these distractions.

Loki discovers that by suggestively thinking a word or two at Stark, he can prompt Stark to reveal more to him. _Steve_ , Loki thinks at Stark, and like a net the single reflected word dredges up a feast of thoughts and feelings about Rogers, followed by a strike of anger.

"Fucking-- cut it out," Stark says breathlessly, but his internal anger fades quickly, and he says, "Loki," in a needy little mewl, as though starting talking has left him temporarily unable to stop. Loki ceases sucking and rearranges himself again, pressing full-length close to Stark now to take a turn kissing him. Stark looks and feels on the verge of falling apart. He's close, and fighting the urge to come, denying himself release to draw the sex out a little longer. Stark pinches the shaft of his own prick uncomfortably between thumb and forefinger, purposefully thinking of turnoffs, with words like _Dad_ and _Obie_ and disembodied thoughts like _disappointment_ under the surface. 

Loki blinks. He certainly recalls Stark mentioning a poor relationship with his father, because for obvious reasons that's the sort of comment Loki remembers, but an offhand statement is a realm away from feeling the strata of old hurt, guilt, and faded but long-lasting bitterness smoldering under Stark's surface. Loki perceives also the long and dark, corrupted bond with the man he sees in Stark's mind as _Obadiah_. Loki stares at Stark, overcome by the world-shaking revelation that Stark's frustrations with his father are not unlike Loki's own. To be the second choice, unloved, kept at arm's length. Loki's thoughts lead Stark deeper into his own, and deeper into Loki's in turn, and Loki sees his own shock reflected on Stark's face. At last Loki breaks eye contact and pushes the mental mess away as best he can.

Doom reaches for Loki's cock and strokes him dexterously with one strong hand, easing the shift back to focusing on pleasure, and only Victor von Doom could keep a perfectly even pace of sex while giving an expert handjob and holding himself over his bed partner with only one arm. Doom fucks like he does everything else--with an arrogant precision that would be obnoxious if he was not so exceptional at everything. Victor treats sex like a competitive sport, but as a beneficiary of his sexual largesse Loki can hardly argue. Stark, possibly due to Loki's thoughts and feelings flowing into his head, stares up at Doom with parted lips as if seeing him with new eyes, and Loki feels the diminution of his objections to Victor.

Loki lifts a leg up, pointing and flexing his foot with agility to stroke the back of Doom's head and neck. Doom's hair feels softly crisp under Loki's toes, and when Loki moves the ball of his foot to Doom's cheek, Doom takes the hint and turns his head to take Loki's toes into his mouth. Loki watches the top quarter of his foot disappear into Doom's titanium mask illusion and hums appreciatively as Doom sucks his toes in turn, his tongue lashing into the spaces between. Doom accepting anything other than Loki's tongue into his mouth is new, and Loki has the sense of an apology with plausible deniability preserved. Because of course the mighty never lower themselves to apologies.

Between Doom still thrusting purposefully and the shared experience of the hand on Loki's cock, the pressure in Stark's groin feels overwhelming, his need mounting ever greater. Stark feels ready to go off, like he requires but a little more stimulation to reach his tipping point. Loki pulls his foot back down and pushes Victor's hand off his own groin, curtailing the warm stroking. "Stop, Stark's going to come," he says aloud before he props his head on his elbow to refocus on Stark, curling magic around his fingertips, preparing to fulfill his starting promise.

"You're about to blow my mind, aren't you," Stark mumbles, and Loki smiles at him, because yes, he does feel rather full of anticipation. "Go ahead. Do it." Stark's hips rock urgently, pressing back into Doom's thrusts yet seeking that little bit more. Loki calls additional sparks to his hand, a visible violet spiral flowing to and coiling in his palm.

 _Do it_ , Stark thinks at him, loudly and clearly.

 _Beg me, your god._ Loki tries to block out his feelings, to drain them from his mind. To keep distant--

 _Please. Loki._ Stark gazes up, his face full of aching want. _Please so close Loki please_

Stark thinks _love, really you love--_ questioningly in there somewhere under all the layers of desperation, but Loki ignores that as much as he can. 

_I don't_

Loki is an old hand at pleasure magic, one of his favorite types of sorcery to be sure, and he's had centuries to practice liberally and perfect his methods. As he reaches for Stark's prick with his hand full of ecstasy, Loki wonders why exactly he hasn't given this gift to Stark before. Again he pushes down his feelings, but he cannot avoid the fact that pleasing Stark feels disquietingly satisfying. Loki banishes the thought, and thinks instead about the fact that with their connection, he can for once enjoy the fruits of his own labor to their full extent. Which means he probably will be unable to fulfill his starting promise after all.

Doom's hips move a little faster and harder when he feels the sizzle of magic being applied between his body and Stark's, and Loki lets his hand brush back against the lowest part of Victor's muscled belly, spreading the bliss around as he feels the delight radiating from Stark's cock and the fullness in his ass. Doom hisses like he's struggling for control.

Then Loki thinks no more, forced to close his eyes and ride it out with Stark as Stark hurtles over the edge. The effort of holding himself back from his own orgasm feels like keeping a muscle contracted, and it takes a great deal of will. Loki barely manages to caress Stark's flesh as Stark thrusts into the circle of his fist, fulfilling himself in the moment.

As Stark's orgasm subsides, Loki tilts Stark's head back toward his to press an unusually gentle kiss to his mouth. He stops when their eyes meet and Loki feels a sense of wonder from Stark, along with a turmoil of affection, irritation, confusion, resentment, compassion. Loki doesn't have long to think on Stark's emotional shadowplay, though, for after Stark has finished, Doom withdraws from him. Doom's cock starts compressing again as he slides over Loki, transferring slipperiness to Loki's belly from the splashes of Stark's come.

"Don't shrink," Loki tells him with a last glance down. "Just put your cock in and fuck me, you know I can take--"

Loki breaks off, smiling upwards as Doom mounts him and forces his way in, roughly gripping a handful of his hair. Victor obliges his request halfway, or at least stopped the abatement after the request was posed, and his cock expands back to full size faster and more aggressively than usual. Doom begins fucking him immediately, no gentleness, no waiting. The entry hurts, and it's precisely what Loki wants. Loki's aware of Doom's exigent need from the growing irregularity behind his forceful thrusts, from the way Doom's broad chest has beaded with sweat, from the rhythm of his breathing turning jagged and heavy. Lurching and uneven, Doom's body gives him all away, even if Loki will not see gritted teeth or the sexual contortions play over his face as he did with Stark. Loki enjoys Doom using his body this way, enjoys his repressed urgency and the desperation all men, even Doom, come to when their passions are thusly inflamed and their bodies so aroused.

Even when Doom's face is pressed close to his as they kiss, Loki can see no hint of skin, only the gray illusion of metal. Loki presses both hands to Doom's warm, surely flushed cheeks to feel the ridges and pitting of scarring he cannot see. Doom usually knocks his hands aside or seizes his wrists to hold him down when Loki touches his face, but now Doom simply lets him do it.

Loki is half-conscious of Stark rolling to his side up against him, as if Stark's capable of little more than that much sidling movement, but Stark follows up by thrusting lazily but almost helplessly against Loki's hip, caught up again in their mutual need.

Loki finds his body closely in tune with Doom's. Loki feels his orgasm approaching, and he cries out shamelessly as the feeling takes him. Stark shares in the sensations and spurts a second time against Loki's hip as he moans and his fingers grip at Loki's thigh, pushing and pulling Loki's hip to his prick and vice versa. The pleasure feeds back and forth between them. Dimly Loki's aware of Doom following suit after a flurry of rough, shuddering thrusts, his large body tensing all over, his control stripped away until at last he slows. Doom remains silent throughout. Once when he came he let out a harsh, animalistic gnarr, Loki remembers, early on in their dalliance, but only once, and Loki thinks now of that noise whenever Doom finishes.

Doom places a hand on Loki's forehead and on Stark's and utters, " _Part_ " in a ragged, breathless voice. With the same abruptness as their minds joined, Loki feels Stark's consciousness break from his own, leaving him feeling suddenly, strangely alone.

Then Doom pulls out and maneuvers onto his back, leaving the three of them lying roughly in a row with Loki in the middle.

Stark gazes at Loki, and Loki is left with the overwhelming memory of Stark's tumult of feelings. Stark's thoughts of him are softer than Loki's would be were their positions reversed; Stark is fond of him as well as excited by him sexually, with a grudging respect and a healthy fear and a surprising amount of trust thrown into the mix, but Stark also _pities_ him. Loki's mouth sets in a hard line. Stark's eyes flicker past him to Doom.

"You're not half bad, Medieval Times," Stark says. "I still don't approve of the dictatorship thing--"

"Silence, you simpleton," Doom orders, and Stark obeys him with the tiny smile of subversive acceptance Loki's familiar with, as though Stark is satisfied to have spoken long enough to have annoyed the person he's addressing with no consequences.

Doom sits up, running a hand through his ruffled-up, sweat-dampened hair, an oddly human gesture on him. Doom's posture is perfectly straight-backed as usual, but the dip of his head suggests weariness, and Doom rubs at the back of his neck for a moment, another movement that would be natural on anyone else but looks extraordinary and out of place on Victor. After sex, Doom waxes as mellow as he ever does, and Loki enjoys seeing him relaxed. Then Doom slides from the bed and rises.

"Not going to stay and sleep?" Loki asks, though as soon as the question leaves his mouth, he hates that he asked it, for the sake of what those words reveal. Since Thor turned cruel and mad and foreign to him, he _needs_ people, he's flailing around with his need. Stark, Victor. Loki hates it.

"No." Doom's mask turns and his eyes survey both Loki and Stark like so much sexual wreckage before he reclaims his dressing gown, pulling the sleeves over his arms, then swiftly tying the garment closed. "I have further preparations to make."

"Later," Stark says.

Loki makes no further comment, and as soon as Doom shuts the doors behind him, Stark bolts upright on the bed and drops what was apparently a pretense of casual calm. Stark's hair is unruly, rumpled and spiky by sections, and his eyes are no less wild.

"So let's talk about the fact that you _love_ me," Stark utters, staring at Loki like he's in the grip of awe or horror.

Loki scoffs. "Hardly."

"You're lying." Stark sounds mystified. "Why are you bothering lying?"

Loki gives him a hard warning look. "Do not make me prove you mean nothing to me."

"Go ahead and deny it if you want, but I felt what you feel," Stark presses, and clearly the idiot has no sense of self-preservation, though Loki supposes he already knew that.

But even as he's inwardly cursing himself for his weakness, Loki has done enough already that he feels regret over, fleeting and deep-cutting remorses alike. He has no wish to commit more transgressions, to generate more regret and perpetuate the cycle, and so instead of lashing out, he hastily settles on half-truths. "I love Thor," Loki says emphatically, an admission he'd never have made before, but now everything's been turned on its head. "Not you. No other than Thor. My affections for you are as one keeps a cat or a falcon."

"That's not what I felt," Stark says bluntly, leaning closer. 

"I have more complex feelings for you than the others, but my inclination to you is only that, and it will pass."

"Fuck your 'complex feelings.' How long?"

Loki covers his face with his hands, rubbing at his eyes and pulling his lips back in a grimace. "I don't know."

"You must have some idea."

Loki drops his hands. "Oh? Tell me then the precise moment you found yourself smitten with Captain Rogers," Loki retorts.

Stark flushes, and his next words tumble out sounding genuinely hurt and confused. "How could you do the things you did if you care about me?"

Loki grinds his teeth. "Do you think I started out with feelings for you?!" Loki snaps. "When Thor and I returned to this realm, the sum total of my feelings was wanting all of you dead at my feet. You especially, in fact. You are alive because Thor wanted you alive. No reason other."

Stark's studying him, though his eyes remain large and sad like a kicked puppy. "What changed?"

"Well--Thor," Loki answers. "And-- I... realized you're not terrible."

"So... not ants," Stark says quietly.

"Larger, marginally more interesting ants than I thought at first blush."

Stark huffs a laugh. "You're such a liar. I would believe you if I didn't know better." He falls silent for a few moments. "I have complicated feelings for you too," Stark says finally.

"I do not want or need your pity," Loki says with all the razors in his voice Stark's inward musings deserve.

"Sorry to hear that," Stark says tiredly. "Funny thing, I can't actually help how I feel. By all rights I should hate you."

"I sensed you feel you should," Loki says, cool. He remembers the innumerable flashes of private thoughts revealed in those first few moments of stunned horror when their minds joined. Stark took to following him around and consciously engaging him as a survival strategy--attempting to endear himself to Loki, attempting to fill the sudden void left by Thor, and among Stark's first reactions during their connection was fear Loki might kill him for his duplicitousness. Loki loathes being manipulated, but he finds he cannot exactly hold it against Stark, either. _Weak_. But then, he would not appreciate Stark half so much were he not rather clever and resourceful... for a Midgardian.

"Yeah. I don't hate you," Stark confirms, but he avoids Loki's eyes now. "I actually kind of like you, when you're not being a complete monster. Why didn't you say something? Tell me?"

Loki laughs without humor. "Tell you? Why would I?" Loki says. "If you really do not know why I said nothing, then I would turn that selfsame question back on you."

Stark sighs. He lies down once more on his back, resettling thoughtfully as he stares at the ceiling. "If you're talking about Steve, I don't think he would have me," he confesses. "He was different to me after New York. Warmer, like he'd changed his mind about me. I didn't want to mess up our friendship finding out. Then not two months later you and your brother happened." He falls silent again.

"Mm... and you hated Captain Rogers as a child. That adds quite the fascinating layer to your affections for him now." Loki looks him over analytically, remembering. "And you are aroused by the rush of danger to your life and limb." Loki remarks upon this last tidbit with feigned disapproval, only because it feels nice to impress upon Stark that his innermost sanctums of mental privacy have been equally violated. "That is ... really quite unfortunate for you."

"It's just my kink, it doesn't translate to real life." 

Loki gives Stark his most dubious look; he's seen far more than enough to know this is a lie.

"Most of the time," Stark admits in a mildly sheepish addition, and as if in a comeback he says challengingly, "You're turned on by your brother, I think I come out ahead on this one."

"Thor is not my real brother," Loki says sharply.

Stark continues, turning sober again. "So you think what sent Thor off the rails is you and him--"

Loki speaks over him, fast and snarling. "Feelings or no, if you speak to me of Thor, I will kill you."

"Okay, okay." Stark seems to know when he means a threat he issues. "Fine. You don't poke at my scabs, I won't poke at yours."

Loki glares daggers at him.

"Okay, whatever. In any case I don't blame you about me. I am pretty awesome," Stark says, smirking before he turns onto his side, facing away from Loki. "Attractive, witty, resilient, uninhibited, a genius--"

"Enough," Loki says.

"--just saying, at least you have good taste."

Taking careful aim, Loki utilizes the opportunity to soundly smack his buttocks. 

"Ow!!" Stark positively howls. "Holy shit, you are way too strong to do that."

"You are as egotistical as Doom, with far less cause."

"I guess you have a type," Stark teases, but he sounds as sleepy as he does amused, and his hand moves slowly over his rear as he rubs where Loki slapped him. "Ow. Ow ow ow. By the way, you still haven't given me ten orgasms in a minute."

"That is entirely Victor's fault," Loki says. "That little trick of his distracted me so I could not focus. Blame him."

"Yeah, yeah," Stark says.

Behind Stark's back, Loki lifts a hand. Loki gazes at the two deep creases in his palm, the head line and the heart line, as he summons back the magic of impending gratification, watching the purple and violet sparks build and swirl.

"I'm starting to think you're all talk," Stark is saying, but he stops when Loki slips an arm over him, rolling him from his side onto his back, and he loses his words entirely as Loki cups a hand around his spent, limp cock.

As before, the pleasure penetrates Stark's flesh almost instantaneously, and Stark jerks, gasping in the throes of a sudden orgasm for which he's wholly unprepared. He spurts over Loki's hand and wrist. Loki rearranges his now-wet hand to account for the position of Stark's rapidly renewing erection. Stark's legs open for him, spreading instinctively as he comes a second time.

Counting the passing time in his head, Loki silently appreciates the sight of Stark's face, the sound of his moaning and gasping, the heady, particularly masculine, human smell of him. Stark spurts only a few drops in his second emission, fully emptied out after a sum total of four orgasms over the course of the evening, but Loki's pleasuring continues apace.

Loki counts to six four additional times, bestowing pulsing ecstasy at each interval. At last he withdraws his hand, though not without trailing his fingers across the lowest part of Stark's belly, lighting up the dense bundle of nerves beneath the skin, always a hit in the afterglow. Loki allows the remaining magic to dissipate and disperse into the air and blows gently across his wet, tingling palm.

Loki wipes his hand and wrist against the sheets. Stark takes a long time to say anything. Loki's starting to think Stark might pass out without speaking at all when he finally starts to mumble. "So that may have been the best minute of my life. I think I love you too now."

Loki rolls his eyes and turns over, away from him. "Go to sleep, you insufferable fool."

*

The next morning, sometime before dawn, Loki awakens and clads himself. Stark sleeps on, his face peaceful.

Loki quietly leaves their room. It's the work of seconds to find a servant, and the robot guards on duty lower the drawbridge for him. Retrieving the Iron Man armor from the car at the foot of the hill, he returns to Castle Doom. The trip takes all of fifteen minutes. Doom will surely be aware of his comings and goings, but Doom chooses not to interfere or question his purpose, allowing him to go back and forth unescorted. The Iron Man armors are stored in some mode that allows them to stand on their own, so once back in the room they slept in, Loki sets the suit down on its boots a few feet from the bed. Stark slumbers on, so from the bookcase Loki chooses an arcane volume on portal magic, because if there is one thing he needs to learn how to do with ease, it's teleport. Loki wonders if Doom placed this book on the shelves intentionally for him. Then he curls up in an easy chair in the sitting room to read and occasionally look at Stark.

In time Stark wakes up to the light of the thin Latverian sun slanting across the bed, and he sits up and spots the Iron Man armor. Without taking his eyes from his prize, Stark rises and pads silent and naked across the room. He touches the armor, stroking from the vambraces to the chestplate. Stark slides his hands over the metal shoulders as though the armor is a thing alive and prized as much as any child or lover in the nine realms. Loki half expects him to kiss the faceplate.

Loki watches Stark run a hand over his prick, adjusting his genitals unselfconsciously. Then Stark half-turns, searching for him, or sensing he's being watched, and he stops when he sees Loki gazing in his direction, book lowered to his lap.

"Good morning," Loki says.

"Best in a while," Stark replies, taking a long glance back at his red and gold armor. "Were you just sitting there watching me?"

"Why not?"

"I usually hate mornings after," Stark says. "I avoid them. The aftermath is so awkward. You're not doing anything to change my mind so far."

"Coupling a second time usually fixes that," Loki suggests with a tiny, sly smile.

Stark chortles, but he gives Loki an appraising look before seeming to decide Loki is teasing. "Usually it's because I don't want to see the person again," Stark goes on, "but today it's more the sense of 'hey, so that happened.' Now I'm just like Dennis Rodman, giving Kim Jong Il a pass like an asshole."

"I do not know what that comparison means," Loki says dismissively, because it's all typically pointless Stark blather.

"It means I'm a bad American and Steve would be very disappointed in me," Stark says. 

"So show a modicum of self-control and refrain from telling him."

"Yeah, I won't be sharing. Especially since I have zero regrets," Stark says, running a hand through his messy hair. "It's been a while since I've been absolutely wrecked in bed like that."

Loki's left mystified by this statement--a quirk of the All-Tongue? "'Wrecked' implies--"

"Yeah I know, that's not how I meant it. Even interpersonal revelations between you and me aside, it was good." Stark turns and scans the corner of the floor where he dropped his clothes the night previous. "Really good."

"I imagine they're in the wardrobe," Loki says.

Stark makes a strange face, going over to the clothes chest against the wall. "Cleaned and pressed," he says as he pulls out his jeans, which fall out of the crisp fold they have been given, and he holds the seat of the pants to his face for a moment. "It's really just like I fucked myself... again," Stark says. "Who's Doom's Pepper?" Stark offers no further explanation for this comparison, then shakes his head, tossing both T-shirt and jeans onto an unrumpled corner of the bed. "What am I saying, I'm the only one with a Pepper."

"Stark," Loki says, changing the subject. "Listen. I brought your armor, but have you considered staying behind? If you come with us, you will remember this reality, and everything that has happened." Stark is already shaking his head no. "Would you not rather forget?"

"Nah," Stark says. "No. Don't get me wrong, it's sucked, it's been bad, and I won't even pretend I couldn't use some therapy, but a philosopher once did a great line about he who cannot remember the past being condemned to repeat it." Stark sinks into the chair opposite him, still naked. "Besides, I got to see another side of you and have a surprisingly epic threesome."

"Be serious," Loki sighs.

"I don't get more serious than this," Stark says briskly, leveling a businesslike expression at him. "I'd rather you and I remember together than forget with everyone else. All of them should start fresh, definitely. But I can handle it."

"You already have--" Loki requires a second to remember the acronym from the night prior-- "PTSD from Afghanistan and Obadiah and space and --"

"And hey, whose fault is that last one," Stark puts in.

"--I did not need to see into your mind to know that you suffer frequent nightmares."

Stark brushes him off. "Yeah, and so what's a little more wood on the fire, right?" Loki gives him a probing look, but Stark holds firm. "I've been traumatized repeatedly over the course of my life and I'm still dazzlingly amazing. And I want to help, so don't worry about me."

Loki hesitates, but his sense of possessive protectiveness only stretches so far, and at last he inclines his head in tacit assent. Stark nods back, pleased. "Be right back, gonna take a shower," Stark says.

Loki returns to his book as Stark walks naked past him into the washroom, deliberately denying Stark the satisfaction of his gaze. He wonders how Doom got ahold of an Asgardian treatise on teleportation and idly decides to steal it. Loki reads even after Stark finishes washing and comes out to dress five minutes later. In the Tower, Stark could stay in the shower for half an hour. Loki wonders if Stark's hurry is out of concern for being left behind.

"Let's walk around," Stark suggests as he towels his hair dry. "Explore the governor's manse here?" His eyes again stray to his suit of armor. "Fly around?"

"Not a good idea," Loki says, turning a page. "We can irritate Doom later after he's done what we want."

Stark barks a laugh. "Are you at all concerned about him hearing you, or are you saying this stuff because you know he can?"

"I suspect Victor likes to preserve the illusion of privacy for his guests," Loki says, which is not truly an answer.

"What I got from last night is he's kind of a magnificent bastard," Stark says, putting his boxers and then jeans on.

Loki glances up, feeling his slight smile slip from his face. "Do not insult Doom's parentage in his presence."

Stark snorts. "It's just an expression, it means someone-- you know what, nevermind. You're right, I doubt he would get the reference any more than you do. I'm just saying, I still don't like him, but I get what you see in him."

Loki makes a non-committal noise and goes back to his book, not really wanting to dwell further on the only too thorough sharing he and Stark experienced.

"So how long have you and Braces known each other?"

"'Braces?'" Loki looks up, mystified again. Sometimes even with the All-Tongue, Stark makes precious little sense.

Stark pulls his shirt over his head. "Darth Vader? Erik, the Phantom of the--"

"A few years," Loki cuts him off, casting an annoyed glance his way.

"He has a faceful of metal," Stark says like he's explaining, and he sits down at the grand piano and launches into a melody from memory. "Do you play?"

"No."

"No pianos in Asgard?"

"The bards of Asgard prefer harps, lutes, trumpets and a number of instruments you have never heard of. I have, and have always had, better things to do." Loki listens for a few moments to the undeniably elegant music Stark produces, then adds, "Victor composes as well as plays. But I suspect you would need to grovel for the privilege of hearing him."

"Yeah? You ever heard him?"

Once, Victor sat to play for him, unbidden, but Loki thinks he would rather not share that memory. He's already had far too much of himself exposed to Stark. "Do I seem the groveling sort to you?"

"Point taken," Stark says, starting to play the same piece faster.

Loki opens his void seam and seals Doom's book inside, because clearly Stark isn't going to let him get any more reading done. "You are deathly annoying right now. Are you always this manic in the morning?"

"Yeah. How have you not noticed?" Stark asks. "It's usually when I get my best work done."

A knock comes at the door. "Come," Loki calls.

A servant enters carrying a tray of two domed plates, two carafes and four cups. Setting the platter down, he bows and exits without speaking.

"I'm not hungry," Stark says, slamming a number of keys at once to make a blaringly discordant sound.

"Eat anyway." Loki lifts a dome to find a familiar kind of dark rye toast, bacon, scrambled eggs, sliced oranges, and an unrecognizable slice of a loaf of chopped meat and bits of things. The two flagons contain fresh cow's milk and some flavor of juice, Loki knows from experience. Loki picks up a wedge of orange and sits back with it pinched delicately between finger and thumb. "Everyone in Latveria must eat a healthy breakfast. There are signs."

"Listen to you spouting the propaganda," Stark says, but he gets up and pours a small amount of milk into a cup, then a bit of juice into another, setting the second carafe down in apparent exasperation. "Seriously, no coffee? I'm going to get a killer headache. What kind of sadist is he?" 

"Consider that the problem is not that Victor is a sadist, but that you are an addict."

Stark uncovers the same pre-prepared plate Loki did, staring down at it its contents in awe or horror, a replica of the exact wide-eyed face as when he demanded they discuss Loki's feelings for him. "Oh my god, is that _head cheese_?"

*

Stark discovers suitable painkiller tablets in the washroom cabinet, takes several and lies down on the bed with his sunglasses on. When another knock comes at the door and Loki calls to bid them enter, the same servant comes in and holds the doors open (quite unnecessarily) for Doom, fully armored and outfitted.

"Good morning, Sunshine," Stark says, sitting up.

"Do not test my patience," Doom says darkly to Stark, then turns to address Loki. "We are ready."

"Great," Stark says, discarding his sunglasses and going over to the empty Iron Man armor standing by, and he pushes a button and the suit clangs open with a sound more cacophonous than he made on the piano. Stark steps backwards into the metal cage and the plates clamp around his body with a series of clanking noises, enclosing and sealing him inside, then powering up. The process is interesting to watch.

Loki rises when the sounds end and he can hear himself think again. "What moment have you chosen for us to intervene?"

"The last possible moment," Doom answers. "New York City a few minutes before Odinson uses the Tesseract to bring you... wherever he brings you."

"He took me to one of the hidden places, beyond the sight of any," Loki tells him. "Even Heimdall. Even you I suppose. Between Asgard and Alfheim it was."

"Hmm." Doom ignores the fact that Stark has outfitted himself in his red and gold suit of armor. "Stark will be safe here."

"No way--" Stark begins, but Loki holds up a finger and speaks over him.

"I wish him to come," Loki says. "I want the back-up. Do not tell me some nonsense about what you have seen in the timestreams. The plan was to go as a trio. Substituting you for Strange is more than acceptable, but I require that Stark accompany us."

"Do you not trust me?" Doom asks, sounding mildly disgruntled.

"Oh please, as though you trust me," Loki answers.

Doom's narrowed eyes suggest a scowl. "A flawed comparison. Doom is principled. You are not."

"I mostly trust you, be happy with that. Stark trusts you far less."

Doom says nothing for several moments, and Loki is preparing himself to argue further when Doom accedes. "Very well. Whether he comes or stays is immaterial to me. But he must follow my instructions exactly or I will not be held responsible."

"He will follow your instructions as though they were my own," Loki says with a warning glance at Stark.

"I totally will," Stark agrees, and he claps his armor-plated hands together once.

Doom teleports them to another, far smaller room, dominated by a raised rectangular platform built into the floor and several freestanding control panels arrayed around it. A bank of computers lines one wall.

Doom looks at Loki dispassionately. "Before we go, there is one final question to consider."

"Oh? What's that?"

"How greatly you want to set the timestream right."

Loki frowns. "What do you mean?"

"In the most straightforward version of reality," Doom says, "Odinson takes you to Asgard and Odin imprisons you."

Loki feels his mouth tighten. "Hypocrite that he is, I would have expected a death sentence."

Doom shakes his head. "Life imprisonment," Doom says calmly. "The Queen of Asgard intercedes on your behalf."

Loki purses his lips to conceal the distress behind his anger. "And you are suggesting I tell myself to be a good boy and when Thor frees me, to go back to Asgard anyway to make the timestream nice and perfect? Knowing it will mean future me-- _I_ \-- will be similarly stuck in a cell?"

"No." Doom says. "You will not stay there long. But to preserve the correct future, you should put in an appearance."

Loki scowls. "I have no wish to visit a prison cell. What other choice have I?"

"No other, if you want my continued assistance," Doom says.

"Damn you, Victor," Loki curses.

"However," Doom says, as if softening the blow, "we will travel back here to the current day together, and I can place you in your cell in the future shortly before your release."

"What is 'shortly'?"

"A few months or weeks or days, the choice is yours." Doom looks at him impassively.

Loki sidles closer to him. "What are you not telling me?"

Doom is annoyingly unintimidated by him, or pretends well. "Many things," Doom replies. "Each of us has our fate. Your story is far from over, I promise you."

"Tell me how I escape, at least," Loki demands.

Doom shakes his head in refusal. "I cannot tell you more without putting the timestream further at risk."

Loki sighs, giving up for the moment. Doom is impossible. "Fine. Let's go."

"Stand on the platform, three feet apart," Doom instructs, going to one of the control stands.

"I am so going to reverse engineer this," Stark says, peering at the closest of the panels as he and Loki step onto the rectangular dias.

"You would attempt to do so inexpertly and probably cause an explosion," Doom says as he presses buttons delicately yet swiftly with his metal-covered fingers. "Your intellect, while not--" Doom pauses-- "--completely worthless, is far inferior to Doom's." The platform lights up from beneath and begins to glow, moving in soft, light blue and gentle green ripples.

"Well like, that's just your opinion, man," Stark says, undeterred by the jibe. Stark's expression is hidden by his faceplate, but his voice sounds unusually awake and vital, and a jittery, eager energy translates through the metal of his armor in his movements. He's as excited as Loki has seen him since... ever.

A dramatic difference between them, Loki thinks. A sharp divide indeed. He is here because he has to be, offer of Doombots aside, he's forced to be. He has little choice, and he would rather be elsewhere doing near anything. Stark is excited by the prospect of heroics and the danger in which they place themselves by acting.

"How do you figure out the issue of continental drift?" Stark asks Doom.

"I used the machine to send thousands of Doombots back through time to take readings and precise measurements of the lithosphere at various intervals throughout the past," Doom answers, circling around the platform and stepping in between them. "Continental drift is but one additional factor to solve for in the equation."

The blue-green ripples of the platform gradually brighten into a yellow-white glow, and a glistening screen rises from the floor. Loki experiences a tickling sensation all over as the light travels up his body, as though every inch of skin is being stroked with feathers. When the sensation passes, Loki's skin crawls for a moment, and he shivers. The experience is nothing like the sucking, dizzying, blurred but comfortingly familiar feeling of transportation via the Bifrost.

Loki sees Stark's armor shudder and twitch and knows at once that he's sharing a similar bodily experience, but Doom gives no sign, probably used to the sensations by now. And no sooner have they appeared on a sunny day on a New York City street than Stark is asking questions again.

"And how do you account for the axis of spacetime so we don't end up in the past, but out in space?"

"I have made a comprehensive and expert study of astronomy surpassing all others," Doom says as he opens a panel in the underside of one gauntlet and punches buttons into yet another console housed inside. "And I have fabricated technology you cannot begin to fathom."

"You should try me," Stark suggests. "I assume the machine can be used for regular teleportation?"

"Yes," Doom says. "But the necessary calculations are beyond you."

Stark refrains from arguing, apparently more interested in the scientific knowledge available from quizzing Doom. "And how far back can this thing go?"

"All thirteen point seven billion years," Doom says, still tapping codes into his gauntlet panel, "to the singularity of this universe."

"The Big Bang?" Stark laughs, but he sounds enthralled. "Reeeally. Have you field tested it back that far?"

"Yes."

The head of the Iron Man armor cocks sideways, as if Stark disbelieves this claim. "How did you get past the epoch of recombination? It's supposed to be a cosmic dead end, no matter how good you are at astrophysics--"

Doom pauses and looks up, studying Stark with the first glimmer of true respect in his eyes.

Stark fails to notice, still immersed in thought. His helmet cants at an even deeper angle as he goes on. "--and how do you keep existing if you go back to a time when the universe was too hot for electrons and protons to bond, space didn't exist, and finite matter got squished into infinite density?"

Stark looks back up at Doom, who lets a beat pass before answering.

"Magic," Doom says succinctly.

"Oh, it had to end in that," Stark says.

"Yes," Doom agrees, going back to his button-pushing. "It did."

"Anticlimactic," Stark says sourly, as though he's disappointed. "I was starting to think you were a seriously amazing scientist."

"You are an inexpressible imbecile if you think anything else," Doom says.

"You are both boring me," Loki announces, and they turn and look at him simultaneously. "When are we, exactly?" he asks, but as soon as he speaks the final word, he sees himself and Thor coming across the busy street. "Ah, I see."

"I will stop time so you can converse," Doom says, and he lifts his arms and begins to cast a chrono spell, by far the most complex magic Loki has seen him work. Loki puts all other considerations on hold to watch. Considered beyond dangerous, time magic is forbidden in Asgard by order of the Allfather and is almost as strictly proscribed as necromancy. Loki is accurately regarded as one of the most powerful sorcerers of Asgard: he can do battle and conjure and perform many spells of convenience, he can shapeshift into all manner of forms, and he can cast grand and varied illusions with naught but a thought, and he's confident he could overcome Doom in a full-out throwdown, but Victor shows proficiency in areas of magic Loki has yet to master or even attempt. But Loki no longer has any reason to pay the slightest heed to the laws of Odin any longer. Loki is free.

He is free--and he is also bound with chains and gagged across the street, a prisoner in Thor's custody. As everyone around freezes in place as though abruptly and invisibly iced over, Loki's muzzled and cuffed younger self glances around in confusion.

"Loki," he calls to his younger self.

Younger Loki looks at him, then tilts his head quizzically.

Loki crosses the street, approaching his younger self, Doom and Stark at his back on either side. Reaching around his younger self's head, Loki grapples with the muzzle gagging his mouth.

"A moment," Loki says unnecessarily, "and I will have this off you."

"Is this some kind of trick?" younger him asks when the muzzle is removed, licking his lips.

"No trick," Loki promises.

"Von Doom," his younger self says with a laugh, still flexing his jaw in the newfound freedom from the gag's removal. "And Stark?" His younger self glances at Loki curiously. "What is this?"

"An intervention," Stark puts in, circling his own younger self critically, either reconsidering the choice of florid purple tie and light gray business attire, or admiring himself. Loki would wager an Infinity Stone on the latter.

"Let me do the talking, Stark," Loki says, annoyed.

"Not a rescue? I'm disappointed," younger Loki says with a small sigh. "Who sent you?"

"I did," Loki says. "I am a free agent."

"Then why is Stark here?" his younger self asks, as if suspicious and calling him out.

Loki turns to Doom and Stark. "Give us a moment."

"And take away the valuable asset of peer pressure?" Stark says.

"You are in no way, shape or form our peer," Loki's younger self says harshly to Stark, his expression hostile. The sight of his own face full of resentment gives Loki internal pangs, remembering the humiliation of being muzzled and bound before such lesser creatures as though they were his betters, remembering the rancor that the sight of Stark and the others aroused in him at that moment in time.

Doom crosses his arms, but he obligingly walks a ways away, and with a last glance at his frozen younger self, Stark follows him.

"Maybe I shouldn't have brought him," Loki admits, looking after Stark.

"What is this?" his younger self says. "Who are you really?"

"I am you," Loki says gently, studying the mirror of his own face. "Really."

"And what is this about?"

"About you," Loki answers. "And me, and Thor. I came at great cost to speak with you in this place, at this moment."

His younger self looks dubious. "Why should I believe anything you say?"

"I can prove I am you," Loki says, "from only a few months into the future. Ask me anything. We have the same memories."

"That doesn't make you me," his younger self objects.

"Then let me tell you a story," Loki says. Loki glances in Doom and Stark's direction. Judging by the way their respective armors are positioned on a set of concrete steps, the two are engaged in conversation. No repulsor blasts have been audible thus far, and Doom has yet to swat Stark like a bug. It's promising.

"I suppose I'm not doing anything else at the moment," his younger self says, as though painfully bored. "I am listening."

"Thor did not take me to Asgard as he assured the others he would," Loki says, looking down at the muzzle, turning it over in his hands, studying its cruel angles.

"No?" His younger self sounds deeply surprised, making Loki remember how startled he'd been, too.

"No. The things we said to Thor before we were gagged-- Thor was moved, and made afraid. He does not want us to die from torture at the hands of the Other, nor face death in Odin's custody in Asgard. He will take you to a secret place near Alfheim and seek a promise from you not to return to Earth, and in exchange he will offer to set you free." Loki smooths a hand over his younger self's hair, feeling both earnest and empathetic towards him. "But you must refuse him. Make him take you to Asgard."

His younger self laughs mockingly. "That's absurd."

"You must," Loki insists. "When Thor took the muzzle off me, I..." Loki considers anew how to sum up all that has happened. "We won Thor to our side, and everything fell apart."

"Fell apart?" his younger self asks, interested now.

"In the worst of ways," Loki says. "Thor turns dark, destructive--" Doom's words come back to him-- "Violent and dissolute."

"That sounds incredibly intriguing," his younger self says, turning to the riveted and still body of their brother as if considering him anew.

Loki feels his impatience grow, and he seizes his younger self's arm, jerking him to get his attention back. "It was not the 'fun' sort of darkness. It was not a pleasing chaos, it was bloody, ominous, boots-slipping-in-guts mayhem. He became cruel and unruly and grew cold even to me--to us. You must believe me."

"I must trust you, 'this is for the best?' Now you sound like him," his younger self says.

"Do I? Do you then want to find yourself in my future, where Thor is a horrific monster and your closest ally is Anthony Stark?"

"Such a terrible fate," his younger self teases. "Tell me, is Stark pleasurable in the bedchamber?"

Loki is rarely shocked, but he's shocked now. "How --!"

His younger self smiles charmingly. "The way you look at him--or, his armor. I can read you like a book."

 _Am I so transparent? No, he's being conniving._ "He is satisfying," Loki allows with a slight smile of his own.

His younger self lets out another long, slightly exasperated sigh. "I suppose I must believe you are me, after all. Though evidently spending time with the mortals of Midgard turns me as weak and soft as it did Thor."

"The smoothest tongue of the gods, and yet I lack the words to express how meaningless your opinion is to me," Loki says. The insult smarts in part because he cannot entirely disagree. "Consider that perhaps it was Thor losing his mind that caused what effect you think you see."

"I will take your word for it, I suppose." His younger self's eyes drift over him. "I suppose I should be glad I did not remain their king, if you are my future after only a few months in their company."

Loki stares him down. "And will you give me your word?"

"Verily, I promise," his younger self says, but he holds a trace of something in his face that Loki knows and does not like. Gazing at him, Loki feels resignation. He cannot trust himself, not in a matter of this importance.

"Victor," Loki calls, and Doom's mask swings upwards to look at him. Loki gestures him over, and Doom closes the distance between them. Stark follows in his wake.

"This won't work," Loki says, indicating his younger self. "He cannot be trusted."

"No, wait," his younger self says, suddenly urgent. Stark reaches out to grip the younger Loki when he tries to spin away, working to hold him in place while he struggles despite the dampening chains binding his wrists. Loki assists Stark from the front, forcing his younger self's head back against Stark's shoulder, using his body to press his younger self too firmly into Stark's armor to jerk away, and at the same time covering his mouth. His younger self stops fighting, then, giving up. Loki pushes the seat of the muzzle back between his lips.

"I can read you too," Loki murmurs through bared teeth into his younger self's ear.

"I told you meeting with your past self would be pointless," Doom reminds him.

"I have a better idea," Loki says, and with his free hand points at Thor.

Doom nods approvingly, making Loki wonder with a flicker of irritation if this was Doom's plan all along.

His younger self looks at Loki bitterly, betrayal clear in his eyes. Then Doom enspells him with a decisive clench of one fist, meshing him with the rest of frozen time, and Loki's younger self stiffens like all the others, his face fixed full of new acrimony not present when time first stopped. Loki releases him.

"Were you going to suggest beseeching Thor at some point?" Loki asks Doom politely.

"Doom foresaw that this past version of you would not be receptive to your greater stock of information," Doom replies, flipping his gauntlet panel back open and pressing buttons until the glistening screen appears beneath their feet. "Talking sense to the present you hardly works."

Loki glares at him as the screen rises and his skin begins to tickle again. "I listen to you," Loki insists. "I have been doing nothing but heeding your advice since Stark and I came to you!"

"You are ruled by your passions," Doom says neutrally, as younger, muzzled Loki is reset to his original position. "Not logic. You do better when allowed to come to your own conclusions."

Loki snarls at him. "Is that what this is about? Learning how to _manage_ me?"

"I do not fault you for your nature, as you are not of this world," Doom says, placating him. "But only a fool persists in folly, and Doom is not a fool." Doom dismisses this line of discussion with a wave of one hand, as if the conversation holds no further interest to him. "Importune your brother," Doom says. "Make him listen."

Doom reaches out and grips the upper arm of Stark's suit, dragging him a step closer. 

"Hey," Stark objects.

"Odinson should not see us," Doom says in a voice that brooks no argument, and he teleports himself and Stark away before Thor suddenly sparks back to life, inhaling and blinking, then gaping when he sees Loki standing before him, doubled: one chained and gagged and frozen, one free, unbound, and staring at him.

"What... what is this?" Thor demands, glancing back and forth between Loki and his statue-like counterpart, gripping Mjolnir's haft a bit more tightly as though about to swing or hurl it. Thor looks around at the enscorcelled morning, confused and worried and angry and _good_. "Loki! _What did you do?!_ "

Emotion pours through Loki like a tidal wave, the flow washing his churning thoughts away, rinsing his heart bare. The words he's hastily planned melt away in his mouth, and instead of answering he throws himself into Thor's arms.

"Thor," he cries, his brother's name nearly tearing from his mouth.

"Loki, what is this?" Thor asks again, softer this time, his wrath fading promptly in the face of his worry. Thor can never stay incensed at him. "Loki! It's all right." Thor sets a hand to the back of his head, stroking slowly down his hair as he used when they were young, as he did when they were briefly, so briefly, lovers and newly contented together. "Do not weep. Tell me what's happened. What is this?"

"I've missed you so much," Loki says, forcing the sobs back before they can fully take hold, though he cannot hide the wetness collected in his eyes. He clutches Thor like a drowning man adrift with a broken plank of ship, hoping to avoid slipping forever beneath the cold waves.

"I've been right here," Thor insists. He shakes Loki none too gently but his voice is more fretful than ever. "Where are you from, Loki? What is this, what has happened?"

"A terrible future," Loki says, pulling back. "I came to warn you."

Thor's expression clears. "Tell me."

Loki stares up into Thor's open, concerned face. "You must keep this version of me gagged," Loki tells him, pointing to his younger self. "You do not take me to Asgard. You take me to a secret place near Alfheim and confess that you fear for my safety, for my very life."

Thor's face fills with guilt as Loki describes the memory that's soon to be Thor's future. "To go elsewhere was my intent," Thor admits roughly. "I fear our father will sentence you to die."

"Odin is not my father," Loki says, more harshly than he means to, and he draws a calming breath. "You remove the muzzle and ask for my promise to leave Earth be and to never return. I agree and you release me. But then..." The remaining words of his confession start to stream out of him desperately, like so much poison being purged. "I sway you with my words, and I bind you to my side and I to yours, but our oath does not work the way I thought and everything goes awry--" He cannot speak of their revelations hence and their greater, deeper intimacy, which Thor desired every bit as much as Loki did, no oath, no hypnosis, no coercion whatsoever upon him--

Thor looks wrathful again. "An oath?! Loki, _what did you do_."

Loki loves Thor and desperately, but he hates him too in nearly equal measure: the two cruel sides of the coin. "Thor. Let it be. Please. Only take me to Asgard. Straight to Asgard, no other."

Thor's anger seems cut by his sense of guilt. "You know the laws, and the Allfather's justice," Thor says unhappily with a glance at Loki's younger self. "He may not listen to my counsel."

"Odin sentences me to prison, not death, and that is how it must be. Do not remove the muzzle, you cannot release me. Only take me to Asgard. I know you want to help me, to protect me, but it all becomes a terrible mess, foredoomed to disaster," Loki says, almost crying again. "Promise me."

"I swear it," Thor says. "Be comforted, brother." Thor slaps a heavy hand onto his shoulder, squeezing. "For honor and the Realm Eternal, I give you my solemn pledge I will take you to Asgard. What happens in the future you come from?"

Loki stares into the distance, the tears falling now. Thor cannot be his, never. He finds himself looking at the empty steps where Doom and Stark previously sat to wait for him. "Little good," he answers. "We wreck this world together. All that you revere, you destroy. All the love drains out of your heart. Your care for your mortal friends, for this realm, for Asgard, in time even your care for me."

Loki glances back at Thor and realizes at once that for the sake of kindness he should not have confessed as much, for Thor looks crushed. Well, nevermind kindness.

He could assuage Thor's self-recrimination, tell Thor the fault lies entirely with him, but instead Loki only points at his younger self. "You have the power to preclude it. You must vow to cut out my tongue ere you listen to the things I would say to you on this morning."

Thor blanches. "I would never do such a thing to you," he says, and Loki knows he speaks the truth, and if he had not anticipated this reaction he would not have suggested something so disfiguring. The same way Loki would have slain Captain America without contrition but hated the close-up sight of Rogers broken and dispirited, Thor would kill him before inflicting that sort of lingering violence on his person. 

Thor pulls him back into a vise-like embrace. "But what sorcery is this?" Thor asks, his head twisting around in the still morning, frozen with magic. "You traveled across time to warn me of this doom? How did you manage it? How will you end it, and where will you go now?"

Loki glances about as best he can with his face tucked over Thor's shoulder. "I go forward to prison if you fulfill your promise. Do not worry. I had this one chance, and I took it."

"You are so different," Thor marvels, stroking his hair again.

"We danced together down a grim path, and as you darkened like a raven's wing, so I lightened."

"You speak in riddles," Thor complains.

"Riddles are best for this," Loki mumbles into the solidness of Thor's shoulder.

"I love you, brother," Thor says, tilting his head down to kiss Loki's cheek. The words are not entirely loving or sweet; an edge of anger still roughens Thor's voice.

"I love you, Thor," he whispers. "Remember your promise. Do not forget."

Thor nods, and Loki pulls back and blindly walks away, crossing the still and silent street in the frozen city. He feels Thor's eyes trained on him as he departs, and then the morning springs back into life around him, full of movement and light and sound. Loki cannot look back, though he feels Thor's gaze like an axe buried between his shoulder blades. Loki walks as though he knows where he heads, trusting Doom and Stark to appear somewhere from around a corner.

*

He finds them one city block up. Doom waits with his arms crossed.

"Thank god you're back, we've been mistaken for cosplayers twice," Stark says. "Awkward."

"Is it done?" Doom asks.

Loki flashes a faint smile at the thought Doom might truly have offered him privacy in which to speak to Thor. He doubts it, but Doom can be as honorable as he is proud. "I believe so."

"Good," Doom answers curtly, and he opens his gauntlet panel and begins to press another sequence of buttons.

The glistening screen appears above their heads this time and descends, and the three of them are bathed again in yellow-white light, and within a few moments they are back in Castle Doom as the light fades out and Loki's skin crawls briefly. The room is one Loki has never yet seen, circular in shape as though they are inside one of the rounded towers. The walls are densely painted with many glowing runes of specialized protection, concentration and power, and a large crystal scrying ball rests in a stand in the center of the room. Loki looks around appreciatively, admiring the laboratory of prophecy as only another wielder of magic can.

"So this is where the Ouiji board mojo happens, I'm guessing," Stark says as Doom strides forward, lifting his hands and calling down a scrying spell, crying out words of enchantment. Loki watches the clouds gather inside the ball, then clear, but the happenings that follow within the crystal ball are too small for Loki to decipher from a distance. Loki moves forward to look, standing beside Doom to peer down and see what he sees.

Doom stares into the crystal ball, from time to time waving the clouds to one side or another, his gestures brushing visions aside to reveal some other sight. Loki glimpses a strange and fascinating series of scenes: Rogers and Romanov together in a car, caverns with tiny speckles of glittering, unmined silver, and various mortals and aliens Loki doesn't recognize: a man with a metal arm, a man wearing red goggles and metallic wings flying through the air, a striped rodent wearing a jumpsuit, carrying a gun, and walking on two legs, an alien woman with purple antennae kneeling on the ground, a man in a black and red suit wielding twin swords against a black-clad foe, and beside him a large man with white hair and a golden light where an eye should be.

Loki sees himself walking chained and surrounded by guards through the Asgardian dungeons, Reed Richards, whom he recognizes only from a single photograph, building a machine, Thor drifting unconscious through open space amidst the stars. He sees an enormous white feline beast towering over a tiny figure, and Odin dressed like a Midgardian grandfather, and a figure in a black cat suit, and an Atlantean city burning beneath the waves of Midgard's oceans.

Stark speaks up from behind them, deaf and blind to the pulsing arcane power in the air that surrounds them. "So are all the rooms in this place like, one big thing in the middle of the room? The bed room, the time machine room, the crystal ball room? It's unorthodox decorating. I like a more modern appr--"

"Silence, you halfwit," Doom commands, pausing with his hands held midair, his fingers half-curled in conjuring, and the vision within the crystal pauses on Dr. Strange levitating before a window. "Only great fools interrupt Doom's spellwork, and few long survive their mistake." Doom's fingers resume his rhythmic channeling motions, the image of Strange rotates and Loki sees Thor standing before him in Midgardian dress.

Thanos appears numerous times, on his throne, walking on the surface of Midgard, talking to Ebony Maw. Loki sees the Other, and he sees Corvus with his hideous pointy chin, and he sees Nebula snarling, though to be fair Nebula is usually snarling. He sees Stark wearing the Man of Iron armor in silver instead of red and gold. He watches Doom walk naked beneath an archway, his face in shadow, and notes his cock looks huge as ever. Loki sees a battle with indistinct fighters, then Doom sitting a throne of his own, fully armored, surrounded by an array of servants. Loki is at once startled and delighted to see himself in the high seat of Asgard, holding Gungnir at his side, but the glimpse of total victory is gone all too soon and he knows better than to interrupt. He sees planets spinning in orbit, Stark with a black eye sitting beside a young man in a small shabby room, a flying humanoid alien with red skin firing a beam of light from his forehead, and Thor walking with Frigga to her terrace, deep in conversation. The sight of a black-antlered woman standing in a courtyard of Asgard gives way to the sight of Gamora brooding at a spaceship's forward window gives way to a legion of Doombots beyond number awaiting dispatch in a field, their green cloaks billowing in the wind.

Loki wonders, glancing speculatively sideways, if Doom is partly or entirely mad from all the future-gazing he must do.

At last Doom lowers his arms and turns to Loki. "God of Asgard, the terms of our deal are fulfilled."

"I believe our bargain is ended when I say it's ended," Loki corrects. "I wish to see the state of this realm and this time myself before making that judgement."

"Doom believes you will be satisfied and that the terms of our bargain have been thusly fulfilled."

"If I am displeased, I shall return for additional aid."

"You will need to return either way so that I might put you where you are meant to be, unless you want to undo what you have accomplished. Do so within a day," Doom says.

"Within a week," Loki counters. Stark approaches, coming to stand by his side.

"Three days," Doom says with finality. "I have placed an illusion of you in your prison. I will be forced to maintain it until you return. Do not keep Doom waiting."

"Three days," Loki agrees, nodding.

"Every customer a satisfied customer," Stark deadpans, and Doom's mask turns a few degrees to regard him. Stark gives a little wave. "Thanks for the Vulcan mind-meld, your Majesty, it was very educational," Stark tells Doom, bland and mouthy and fearless as always, putting up two fingers in a 'V' shape. "Drive safe. Consider human rights."

Doom glowers down at Stark, then sticks a metal-covered digit in his face. "You speak too much, you vacuous cretin, and if you persist in your disrespect I shall carve out your worthless tongue. Do not believe you have earned the favor of Doom."

Stark puts both hands up in a brief, rather impertinent gesture of peace as Doom dismisses him and turns back to Loki.

"Take this," Doom says, holding out a small steel cylinder. Loki accepts the item curiously, running his fingers along the smoothness of the cold metal, feeling the satisfying weight of it in his palm. "When you are ready to return, picture the bedchamber and press the button."

"Hmm." Loki turns the cylinder over in his palm, noting the raised button at one end before opening his void seam and placing the device within. "Very well."

"Farewell, god of Asgard. Attempt to avoid further mangling of the timeline."

"Oh, please," Loki replies, rolling his eyes. "You are beyond delighted to hold one of the stones. If I still possessed another, I daresay you would love nothing more than for me to come seeking your aid again."

Doom looks down at him another moment, then without warning clenches a fist and teleports Loki and Stark outside his castle.

"Well, he didn't deny he's happy," Stark points out, glancing around.

Loki stares up at the parapets of the place styled Castle Doom. "I am not sure Victor is ever 'happy.'"

"Your boyfriend is kind of a drama queen, isn't he?" Stark says.

"Look who speaks," Loki says distantly.

Stark chortles at him. "Touche. He's also the rudest person ever. You can't say that about me."

"I can and will," Loki says, coming back to himself a little. "Still I think he likes you, or he would have choked the life out of you already for your insolence." For another moment Loki studies the picture made by the black stone towers against the skyline. "Doom may be rude but you are disrespectful solely for the sake of being difficult."

"I'm an asshole, you can just say it."

"An asshole, yes," Loki says, tasting the word in the All-Tongue. Loki turns, refocusing and pulling out the small homing device box meant to return them to the Avengers' Tower. He presumes the technology will still work in this altered timeline--one way to find out. "Let us go see for ourselves the circumstances of the here and now."

*

They arrive on the roof of the Avengers' Tower. Loki quickly casts a shading spell around himself, less powerful but longer-lasting than a straightforward invisibility spell, and with less effort spent to maintain the illusion. Any who enter his presence will find a reason to look elsewhere. He remains a wanted war criminal to Midgard and to five-sixths of the Avengers, after all.

"JARVIS?" Stark says.

"Yes sir," says a disembodied voice. "Welcome back."

"Thanks. I'm happy to hear your voice," Stark says, sounding unaccountably emotional for a second before he clears his throat. "We have a visitor, I know he'll register on all the scanners, but don't mention it to anyone."

"Of course sir," the voice says.

Stark holds the glass door open for Loki before entering himself and taking the lead. "Where is everybody?" Stark asks the voice.

"In the tv room, sir," the voice answers.

"All of them?"

"Yes sir."

"Great," Stark says, and once inside he heads for the elevator, but after they get in the tiny vertically moving box, Stark turns and looks around for him. The shading spell becomes ineffective when someone already knows he is present. "Listen, go to our--go to my room. Let me go see Thor and everyone, make sure everything's okay and I'll join you ASAP."

"As you wish," Loki agrees, but instead of following directions, when Stark gets off the elevator on the eighty-second floor, Loki follows him silently instead of turning towards the bedchamber suite. Loki trusts Stark, but not enough to skip checking himself on the state of things.

Loki knows his way around the Tower (at least some parts of it) well now, and as Stark walks past the entrance to the kitchen, Loki glances through the doorway.

What he sees there gives him pause and put his plan to follow and confirm Stark's findings on hold. Thor has left Mjolnir carelessly sitting on the left side of the kitchen table.

Loki hears Rogers' voice exclaiming from the other room. "Tony! Where have you been?!"

Loki stands in the doorway looking at the weapon for a long time, feeling the old pull of the hammer, remembering the feel and weight in his hand.

With the acoustics of the television room, he cannot hear Stark's reply to Rogers, but Rogers follows up with, "Why are you wearing the suit?"

No one else is around, and no one would see him even if they were. Loki approaches the hammer, letting his fingers slide over the handle gently before he grips the leather-wrapped haft.

Rather than attempting to lift Mjolnir immediately, Loki stops and considers, filling his mind with the good, moral actions he's taken, all his positive endeavors. He's relinquished a priceless treasure to fix an ill he'd helped do, restoring thousands of Midgardian lives. He's let another treasure simply slip through his fingers for Stark's sake. He's learned to appreciate the value of mortals, which is really all Thor did to become worthy during his time stripped of his godhood and exiled to Earth. He's saved his brother from becoming a bloodthirsty brute devoid of love. Loki spared the Avengers pain when he was able and tried to offer them solace when he could. He will honorably return to Doom and be time-traveled forward to prison to preserve the timeline where Thor is comfortingly Thor and everything is not-horrible.

Loki draws a deep breath, and he tries to lift the hammer.

Mjolnir will not budge.

Loki grips with both hands and tries again even though he knows Mjolnir will not answer to him. After a few fruitless tugs, he lets go of the haft reluctantly and leaves the kitchen.

As if in a dream, he walks the remaining steps to Stark's bedroom, lies on the bed that was his in another world and thinks.

Half an hour later, Stark enters the room without knocking. Stark has removed his armor, Loki sees when he sits up to talk, swinging his feet off the bed to the floor. 

Stark sits next to him on the bed and looks around. "I'm not sure I want to live here anymore," he says without preamble or context, although Loki needs no context. Then he refocuses on Loki. "Okay. Thor seems normal, though I think I'm going to need extensive therapy before I can look at him the same way ever again. Steve is good, Clint is alive. I roundabout asked about Pepper and she's fine, too. Everybody's alive, everybody's okay."

"Say something to Rogers," Loki advises.

Stark needs a second to figure out what he means. Then he scowls. "What the fuck, no," Stark says, frowning at him.

"Odin's beard, Stark, don't be an idiot, say something."

"Stay out of my romantic life," Stark argues.

"I watched him suck your cock, he loved it."

"You made him suck my cock!" Stark says hotly.

"He went from terrible to trying terribly hard. _He_ was hard. You may be a genius, but you are also a complete idiot," Loki says. "Hmm. I suppose I do have a type."

Stark punches him in the arm, not particularly gently, but he ceases to sound irked. "Look, are you sure you don't want to stay? Be a good guy? I'll give them the abridged version of the Cliff Notes on our little adventure." Stark pauses. "Heavily, heavily abridged so I remain the only one traumatized by all... all that everything."

Loki shakes his head. "You heard Doom, I have to go do a stint in Asgardian prison. Preserve the correctly aligned future."

"Well," Stark proposes, "maybe after?"

Loki smiles at him a little. He's pleased to be asked, if nothing else.

"Fury will yell at me for asking you to stick around without his permission and probably make me do a psych eval, but I feel like, you redeem yourself by saving the world on a grand scale, you turn out to be more or less okay after all, you kinda earn it. Plus, this is my building."

"You trust me," Loki says, not quite a question.

"I trust you more than I trust Thor right now," Stark says dryly. "I think you've changed. Am I wrong?"

Loki favors Stark with another faint smile. "Give me a fortnight," he says, "perhaps two, and I will revert to form."

Stark looks startled before his expression darkens into a betrayed, confused frown.

Loki drops his chin a little to bring their faces closer, and he smooths his palms over Stark's shoulders, running his hands down Stark's arms, ending the movement with Stark's warm hands clasped in his. "I will tell you a secret, Stark. Gods do not change, not really. We only have flip sides. Odin has slain countless numbers, yet loudly counsels mercy, haranguing against war and the killing of innocents when he sits his oh-so-noble throne in Asgard. Yet next time he goes to war, he shall be just as bloodthirsty, and even now he kills those on Jotunheim slowly, by degrees, for he has taken their power so their world withers and crumbles away into nothing. Thor is a good man, the stable, reliable, boring, rather dumb Aesir you have come to know, but coaxed down a dark path the chaos in his wake put my wildest efforts to shame."

A long pause ensues after Loki stops talking.

"Well, shit," Stark says finally, like he finds this answer annoying, like this response is not what he wanted or expected, and he pulls his hands from Loki's. "Okay, fine, but god or not, you should at least quit raping people. Take a page out of your boyfriend's book. When Doctor Doom shows better ethics than you, it's time to stop and rethink your life."

"Such a predictably human suggestion," Loki says condescendingly, but then he concedes the point with a twist of his lips, thinking of Mjolnir stubbornly resting on the table. "I am like to have a good deal of time to spend rethinking my life." Loki lowers his gaze to the arc device only superficially hidden by Stark's T-shirt, glowing blue like a lit jewel set into Stark's chest. Stark's own Midgardian version of magic.

"You're a mess, Loki," Stark says, sounding fond and rueful at once. He follows Loki's gaze, glancing down at his own chest. "You want to have sex one last time before prison?"

Loki looks up and smiles.

*

Just for kicks, when Loki uses the teleportation device, he visualizes Doom's laboratory of prophecy rather than the bedchamber they have shared, and to his surprise he actually succeeds. Doom looms over his crystal ball with his back to Loki as before.

"This is not the bedroom," Doom says without looking back.

"I want to keep this toy," Loki announces, tossing the cylinder in the air and catching it, then stashing the device in his pocket dimension.

"Do not abuse the privilege," Doom says.

"Hm," Loki says as he strolls forward, pretending to muse over the thought. "I suppose I cannot abuse it, if I am in a cell in Asgard. Or can I?"

"Do not try."

"But I so love to try new things, and vanishing from my cell would be so funny." Something occurs to Loki. "It wasn't single-use, was it?"

"No." Doom stares down into his crystal sphere. "You will not remain confined for long."

Loki looks into the crystal and sees himself incarcerated in the Asgardian dungeons, a distressing and unnerving sight. The figure may be a simulation of him, but soon enough he will be replacing that semblance for true. _Life imprisonment._ He doesn't want to be in a prison, not even for an hour. "So you have said."

Doom finally turns his head sideways to look at him. "Where in time do you wish Doom to place you? At the beginning of your time imprisoned, or in the middle, or at the conclusion?"

Loki stops, suddenly disconcerted, and flashes a dark and suspicious look at Doom, who is obviously not telling him something important.

"The fact that you're asking at all says you think I will be missing something if I go with the obvious choice, which would be the day I escape. Tell me, what is so redeeming about prison?" Doom remains silent, and Loki allows his voice to slide into a tone mocking earnestness. "Do I learn a valuable life lesson? Do I get a cellmate I will like?"

Doom still shows no reaction. "The decision is yours."

"What are you not telling me?!"

"Many things."

"Victor."

"Scrying into the future is a murky endeavor, you know this. I see a multitude of possibilities and several necessary outcomes. Sharing particular insights might unleash devastation on a grand scale, and I have better things to do than further repair of the timeline."

Loki sighs, because he is getting nowhere with Doom. "What do you recommend, Victor? What will please me most?"

"The beginning," Doom states without so much as a hint of uncertainty.

Loki stares at him. "The beginning? Are you mad?"

"Not at all." Doom looks sideways at him with his standard detachment, sane and inscrutable as ever.

Loki leans over the crystal sphere to examine the image of his cell, to see if anything stands out. He sees nothing of interest whatsoever. Loki squints at Doom, trying to read him, then sighs. "I will be ruled by your recommendation, then. How is that for trust?"

"You are wise to place yourself in my hands," Doom says, sounding satisfied and warm, kind even, the way he sounds when he interacts with his people, and as Loki stares through the apertures carved in the titanium mask, he sees Victor's hard, abyssal brown eyes have grown unusually soft.

"That look you have right now is making me greatly question my judgement," Loki says suspiciously, and Victor, as if realizing a mistake, immediately narrows his eyes in response.

"Just a short confinement, you said?" Loki asks. He cannot deny he feels deeply unnerved, even mistrustful. He is handing Doom far more power than he'd planned when he hatched this time-travel scheme what feels like an Asgardian lifetime ago.

"Approximately one year to keep today's victory intact, and when you look back in hindsight, I believe you will not regret the time spent," Doom agrees, though the gentle kindness has vanished from his voice, if it was ever there at all.

"A _year_?"

"A year is not so long to one such as you," Doom says. "Have I overestimated your fortitude?"

Loki forces himself to relax, for Doom would not outright lie to him. "If I am displeased at the end of my term, I am coming here first."

"Do as you like." Doom sounds unconcerned. With a wave of one metal fist, he disperses the image within the crystal ball.

"You know so much about my period of atonement," Loki comments. Doom beckons him with a hand to follow and leads him out of the scrying room. With natural synchronicity, they fall into step side by side, beginning to traverse a maze of rooms and corridors. Loki glances into each open doorway, interested in this section of the castle, not all of which he's gotten the chance to see. Loki still feels full of qualms, but no reason exists to let Doom know that. "I find it moderately creepy, if you want my true opinion. My skin shall prickle to know I am watched. Although I suppose it is a bit comforting to know that if I find myself lonely, I can talk to myself and know you hear me."

Doom snorts.

"Oh, the secrets you might hear," Loki says archly. "Do you keep such close tabs on your own future?"

"Yes and no."

Loki can scry with brilliant clarity on people and places in the here and now, but he is the god of chaos, and as such, foretelling is not his forte. He has made no attempt at scrying for purposes of prophecy in ages. Which is fine, he prefers to keep life interesting. Nonetheless he cannot deny curiosity about how Victor manages the sorts of insights that can induce personal ruin and build or collapse empires. "Explain."

"Those who peer into their own futures inevitably bring about what they most strive to avoid. It is inadvisable to look too closely at one's own path, and learning from the mistakes of others is something I value. Yet my life and timeline, my success or failure, are irrevocably intertwined with the survival or fall of this world."

Doom and his burgeoning ego. Loki almost laughs, but contains his mirth. Victor keeps talking, but Loki tunes him out.

Something nags at Loki as they walk, and he waits for Doom to fall silent before raising the topic. "If you foresaw this disaster brewing so far off, why did you aid us? You could have turned us away."

"I am powerful and knowledgeable beyond any other, not omniscient, not omnipotent yet. You nearly seized control of this world by yourself alone," Doom points out. "With Odinson standing beside you--"

"You are surely not about to say you feared us?" Loki says with a half-laugh. "Especially since you disapproved of Thor's plans for--" but then the words die on his lips in a flash of insight.

"You wanted this to happen," Loki says in a low voice, suddenly sure of the accusation even as the realization comes to him, stopping in his tracks, each word a whip. Doom turns on his heel sharply to face him as if squaring off against an enemy. "You wanted this to happen even as you warned me when Thor and I came to you. You foresaw this," Loki says forcefully. "All of this? All for the Stone?"

"By the time you came here, the hour was too late to change the course of events," Doom says, and only because Loki knows him well can he tell Victor is taken aback. "I gave you sound advice."

"Knowing it was already too late, and knowing I would not listen. You warned me so I would remember you and come to you when it came time to fix this." Loki puts his hands on his hips.

Seemingly satisfied Loki is not about to attack him, Doom crosses his arms over his chest. "And who else would you have enlisted for aid?" Doom inquires.

Loki thinks about that, and he sighs, and then he relents. "You couldn't have known for sure I _would_ come back," he points out. "Or Thor and I could have returned together here, as conquerors. Don't tell me there's no future where I didn't try. We could have used the very weapons you provided us against you."

Doom invades his personal space, advancing closer until his mask is only inches from Loki's face. Doom may not fear him overmuch, and that's fine, but if Doom thinks to intimidate a god, he will need to work far harder. Loki raises his eyebrows and gives him a mocking smile. 

"You think Doom could be harmed by weapons of his own design?" Victor asks. "Think again."

Loki cannot resist running a finger down Doom's chest, down to where he has crossed his arms the arrogant way he always does. The green fabric of his tunic feels smooth under Loki's fingertip, one of modern Midgard's soft synthetic weaves. Loki tugs whimsically on a fold of the cloth and finds the fabric strong but delicate to the touch--rather like Doom himself. "Well, now I want to try," Loki teases.

Doom lets Loki caress his clothing, apparently writing the moment off as Loki being Loki. Doom eyes him another moment, then drops his arms back to his sides, and they turn together and begin to walk again. Loki resumes looking into open doorways. He can identify some rooms, not others: several alchemy labs, more rooms full of technology, two magical laboratories, three rooms of varying kinds of Doombots, and perhaps most intriguingly, a double room full of corpses held in large glass cylinders, or laid out on slabs covered by glass boxes like coffins over them. Most are human, though a few are alien. Loki pauses at that doorway.

Doom stops a step beyond and looks back at him. "Problem?"

"No," Loki says, leaning against the doorframe. "I'm quite fascinated. Are these your own people?"

"No. In Latverian tradition we bury or cremate the dead."

"Where do you come by the bodies then?" Loki asks, studying the corpses, male and female, young and old.

"They are primarily either clones or enemies of the state."

"And the rest?"

"Are Asgardians or other aliens," Doom says.

"Hm." Loki cannot decide whether he's disturbed or intrigued. Perhaps a bit of both. "Do you like cadavers, Victor?"

"They are educational," Doom answers.

"Hmm," Loki says, and he straightens and resumes walking.

They walk the rest of the way in silence, each in their own thoughts, until at last they come to the scientific laboratory housing the time platform. Loki steps onto the dias alone, waiting as Doom punches codes into the machine's control panels. "Your days must be an endless rotation of 'time travel, scry, time travel, build a robot, scry.' Isn't it boring?"

"No." Doom says. "I enjoy the challenges of spheromancy, invention, intervention."

Loki smiles, holding up a finger. "I forgot 'plotting.' What an egregious oversight."

"Doom prefers 'planning.' The connotations are nobler, thus more befitting of Doom."

"You would benefit from less spheromancy and more disport, if you want my opinion. Tell me this, Victor. Why have we not taken over this world together?"

Doom tilts his head back imperiously. "When Doom claims this world, he shall do so alone." Doom pauses in his button-pushing as if considering his next words. "You will be welcome to visit."

"Visit? Surely you mean to say you will crown me your queen," Loki corrects.

"Farewell," Doom says, but Loki hears the amusement even in the single word, just as he glimpses the sharp flare of hunger in Doom's too-revealing eyes, a flash of keen interest swiftly shrouded in apathy. Loki produces his cheekiest smile. Doom may be immensely powerful, but behind his mask and his talents and his castle-sized ego he is only a human man, with a mortal's wants and needs. Doom is enjoyable to tease and even more enjoyable to bed, and though prickly as ever Doom is appreciably taken with him, far more so than Loki realized at the time of his last visit.

Loki has his ultimate sights set on the golden throne of Asgard, but he would pay homage to Doom as a Midgardian king, if only because he's confident he could make Victor his willing slave.

"See you," Loki says, and as the glistening screen rises from the platform, Doom disappears in a haze of yellow-white light and a tickling on Loki's skin.

*

Loki is kept isolated in his glass cage, given no cellmate. Odin's slow, aged stride is never heard in the hallway of the dungeons. That is well, for Loki has no wish to see him. Thor stays away as well and that hurts more, though Loki will never admit as much, not to anyone. He wonders if Thor keeps his distance for fear of the words Loki might spin together. Perhaps Loki warned him off too strongly on that bright, frozen morning in New York. Or perhaps Thor is simply still bitter. Thor cannot stay angry with him, but his fits of pique can be long.

Frigga visits using a secretive contacting spell every nine meals and three periods of artificial night in the other cells, which he can only assume means she comes to him once every three days, for no natural light ever graces the dim corridors. Loki rules over his scant furnishings, the lighting within his cage and naught else. His new domain. The cells opposite his own holding ordinary prisoners contain no furnishings at all, and they darken and lighten from external controls.

Loki appreciates her disregard of Odin's decree that Loki would not be in her presence again, though of course the situation would be far more interesting if she defied Odin brazenly. But Frigga has her limits, and she would never dare so much. Quiet, deferential subversion is her way. No more than that.

Prison is deadly dull. Loki reads the books Frigga sends, one on his breakfast tray every six meals, and he reclines on his divan and thinks.

Something nags at Loki still. Thor showed no care to listen to his words after grabbing him from the Avengers' plane. Why would Thor suddenly--after all the fighting was over, after all the plans were made, on the very day of their intended return to Asgard--be swayed by Loki's beseeching?

Seven words trouble him, seven words from Doom's mouth. _In the most straightforward version of reality--_

What, Loki wonders, would make one version of reality more 'straightforward' than another? Had _Doom_ meddled in the timeline in the first place, to alter events and set the stage for Thor to remove the muzzle, in order that Thor could be successfully cajoled by him? All for the sake of obtaining the Time Stone?

It's more than possible--it is the next logical jump. Loki has no proof, no hard evidence. But he wonders. If he guesses correctly, he will make Doom suffer beyond the torment of flesh. Loki shrugs off and remits much, but he will not be meddled with like a pawn in someone's game. A mortal's least of all.

The reasoning behind Doom advising him to start at the beginning and serve a full year of his sentence remains a baffling, frustrating mystery. Loki wonders whether Victor deceived him, but no, Victor assured him his stay would be brief, and outright prevarication is beneath Victor even if subtle deception is not. Victor prides himself on his honesty (truly it's a wonder they get along as well as they do) and would have answered him truthfully. Loki goes on wondering until the day of the prison break over a year after he is first rudely pressed into his cell.

*

Then he understands everything. His mother's--for yes, she was his mother in every way that mattered--his mother's death can be laid at his feet. Oh, it's possible another one of the wretches from the dungeon killed her, but Loki's heart tells him otherwise. But no one else knows of his mistake, save that single monstrous creature and Doom (and Heimdall perhaps, though even Heimdall cannot look everywhere at once), and the miserable beast at least is likely dead now. For that Loki is grateful. If no one knows, a mistake can fade, be made unreal, in time forgotten even by him.

Loki maintains an illusion of himself that is calm, dressed, unhurt, unaffected; an illusion who has not been weeping nor screaming in anguish, for Doom will be watching him now if he ever does. Loki feels empty, hollow inside, as though he has always been empty inside, born and lived as no more than a shell. But now and again bitterness washes over him.

"So you wanted to keep this the same," Loki (the still-proud, properly dressed ersatz Loki) says aloud to the empty cell. "I see."

Keeping his illusion up takes little effort. He slumps down against the wall in the aftermath of the news, adrift in a sea of broken furnishings, after he has buffeted the room with concussive waves of cataclysmic force, after he has shattered his wineglass and cut his feet on the shards or those of the broken mirror and trod upon pomegranate seeds and berries, getting the juices and the sting of wine into the cuts, after he has splintered his hands and has other tiny injuries he is heedless of, that do not matter in the least, that are less than nothing.

Then he thinks about the fact that Frigga's death would be unchanged had he gone further forward through time to his future moment of escape, which should be any day now. Frigga would simply be dead already. Or would she? Loki remembers the compassion, even-- regret? in Doom's softened brown eyes, and he knows that what Doom was nudging him towards with this year in prison was _the time with mother_. And he had not realized--had not appreciated--

His heart cracks anew.

"You son of a bitch," Loki says via his illusion, laughing shortly because Victor will hate that slur but will not do anything about the offense. "Stark had the right of it, you are a magnificent bastard, Victor."

Loki makes his illusion smile with calm poise, though he could not muster such a composed expression for true if he tried. He wriggles against the wall, he cannot find a comfortable position in his own skin. He screams again, once. His lips tremble. But none can hear nor see, so those things do not truly happen.

"You loved your own mother, didn't you. Or did you never know her?" His simulacrum pours a glass of wine, lifting the image of an unbroken goblet in a toast. "Well. I am sure she was delightful. Let us drink to them together."

But his illusion pauses then and spins around, for the dungeons have never been quieter, and he can hear slow footsteps resounding down the stone corridor towards his cell.

 

Epilogue

 

When he lies on the gritty dirt of Svartalfheim with his lifeblood weeping out from his heart, while Thor cradles him and scolds him, while Loki panics not knowing whether the healing stone he carries will restore his flesh in time to save him, after Loki blurts, desperately, the words he has not yet allowed himself to say to Thor: _I'm sorry_ \-- Doom's words come back: _your story is far from over, I promise you_ \--

Loki remembers this random assertion so vividly it's almost as though Doom is whispering the reassurance into his ear, or repeating the words directly into his mind, though of course Loki is alone, because he is dying, and everyone dies alone. But the effect upon him is calming, and he stops gasping and his body ceases shuddering and settles, becoming tranquil. For a fraction of a second he thinks of Romanov, always serene, never fazed. _I'm Russian--_

Thor cries over him unashamedly, yet trying to hold to his warrior's stoicism, attempting to keep on a brave face for Loki's sake, and Loki registers the sensation of wetness, not his own, blown by the whipping wind onto his cheeks. Thor's hair lashes around his face like an angry halo.

Yet Loki no longer fears. He will awaken later, after healing, into freedom. Thor holds him a brother in his heart again, Thor's good, stupid, noble core has been restored, and the crown of Asgard will be Loki's for the taking. In his mind's eye he sees himself again upon the throne, holding Gungnir. Everything ( _almost everything_ ) Loki has wanted can be his to claim.

He tells Thor the last words that will not be his last words: _I didn't do it for him_ , and a feeling of utter peace drifts over him. The illusion of greying pallor comes half-consciously, almost instinctively, like pulling a sheet over his face to prolong the comfort of night and defer the morning. Soon a sweeping descent into darkness, but Loki remains peaceful. It will not be death.

A single tear from Thor's eye plummets into the chasm between Loki's parted lips, and in that sweet, salty droplet, in the heartbroken clutching touches of Thor's fingers, in his last seconds before unconsciousness, Loki tastes victory.

**Author's Note:**

> 1\. Yeah, so I'm pretty excited for Thor: Ragnarok. And Infinity War and its follow-up are going to be one long glorious squeal.  
> 2\. Can I just say that I adore that there was already a tag in place for Loki/Pepper Potts/Tony Stark/Thor? Fandom, you amaze me.  
> 3\. It is my sincere hope that the Doctor Doom movie will be fabulous and 'Doom Ex Machina' can someday be a real tag. Come on, Noah Hawley.  
> 4\. Title adapted from a line of Antigone by Sophocles.  
> 5\. I might adjust the epilogue a little in a month depending on what more we find out about Loki's 'death' scene. Or I might just leave it as is, out of laziness or for posterity, who can say.  
> 6\. Thank you for reading, anyone who does. I'm more or less satisfied with how this fic turned out, but I also feel like it's quite the mess of different pairings, and afaict from the kink meme the fandom has long been quieted down.  
> 


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